Obama’s budget director Peter Orszag recently pledged to “…cut the deficit in half by the end of the president's first term." By 2013 he expects the deficit to be $533 billion. Of course, Obama just signed into law a “stimulus bill” that will add $787 billion to this year’s deficit, and Secretary Treasurer Tim “I forgot to pay my taxes” Geithner talked about injecting another $1.5 trillion or so into the banking system. Needless to say, the federal government hasn’t got the $787 billion lying around for “stimulus,” let alone an additional $1.5 trillion to give to people who borrowed more than they should have in the first place.

Those who say, “But he’s promised to cut the deficit in half! Isn’t that a good thing?” need to be reminded that cutting something in half that you ballooned in the first place is not much of an accomplishment.

Forget Washington, D.C. for a moment. Just put the scenario in real-life terms:

Teen-ager Susie racks up $500 in charges on her cell phone. When her irate parents show her the bill she responds, “I promise to cut that in half next month.”

Jerry goes to the casino, has enough drinks to distort his judgment, and blows $1,200 on slot machines. Ashamed, he tells his wife “I promise to waste only $600 next time.”

Sandy goes shopping and returns home with $5,000 in new clothes. To calm her angry husband, she promises she will “cut that in half” on her next trip to the mall.

You get the idea…

Yes, a lot of the blame goes to former President Bush, a Republican Congress (2001-2006) and a Democrat Congress (2007-2008), but the ball is now in Obama’s court.  We don’t need a $787 spending bill any more than Susie needs to waste $500 on phone calls. No doubt Susie is stimulating the phone company’s economy, but Susie isn’t the one who is paying the bill. And Obama will be distributing that $787 billion to his union supporters, ACORN thugs, abortionists, and bankrupt states run by inept legislators, but he isn’t personally stuck paying the bill either.

Before giving the thug-in-chief too much credit for a future promise to cut the deficit in half, stop to remember that he’s the one who is establishing the all-time deficit record from which he’ll make that promised reduction.

Maybe we should be thankful he didn’t promise to cut the deficit by 90 per cent…

Don Fredrick

February 22, 2009

Copyright 2009, Don Fredrick