Sunday, December 2, 2012

When Did Barack Obama Turn Into Dick Cheney?

I wake up to National Public radio (NPR).

Don't ask me why.

Perhaps listening to music instead would make me linger in bed and be late to work whereas hearing some cheerful NPR announcer repeat the inane comments of a government official gets me out of bed and going just to get away from the sound of such mundane horror.

The other day I woke up to a report that Obama wanted to keep the Bush era tax cuts.

I thought I might have still been dreaming.

Perhaps it was a nightmare.

But no, I was awake, and that actually was what the President wanted.

I knew there was a reason I didn't vote for him, the first Democratic candidate for president I didn't vote for ever (I even voted for him in 2008).

Is Obama nuts?  Can he really not add like fans of nutty Paul Ryan claim?

Why on Earth does he want to continue the Bush era tax cuts?  They are one of the two major reasons the federal deficit and debt continue to grow, which is likely to cause long term problems for us as a country when we have to spend money paying interest and repaying debt instead of spending it on something useful for the country (the other major reason is the government spends too much--when Tom Coburn makes more sense than Obama, we know we live in a scary world).

It made me long for the actual Bush era when most Democrats hated the tax cuts and railed against them, pointing out the problems they would cause down the road.

Guess what?  We're down the road now and looking at record deficits and a record debt.  We're probably entering a new recession (you probably didn't even know the last one was over, eh?).

In short, we're in bad shape with ever fewer choices to get into good shape.  Being no fan of higher taxes, I still prefer them to a future economic and governmental collapse.

So why is Obama sounding like Dick Cheney, who allegedly said in 2002 that deficits didn't matter?  Why would he want to continue at least a portion of the tax cuts that caused such a fiscal mess?  He's reelected; he doesn't have to pander to the populace anymore; he can do the right stuff now.  Instead, he seems to want to keep cranking up the debt.

Maybe we'll be better off going over the "fiscal cliff".  At least one Democrat still has some sense.

It's too bad we didn't elect Howard Dean in 2008.  Or, even better, in 2004.

I mean I like that Obama read comic books growing up.

I just wish he'd read some economics and math books as well.

And that he'd now stop reading from the Dick Cheney playbook.

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