Obama still moving the goalposts
Asking federal workers to do what he refuses to do (find ways to cut federal spending) Obama's administration is still claiming the $1.3 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2009 is "not theirs", despite the Democrat controlled Congress delaying the fiscal year 2009 budget bills until after Obama was elected so he could have the "benefit" of a larger Democrat majority.
The $410 billion bill includes significant increases in food aid for the poor, energy research and other programs. It was supposed to have been completed last fall, but Democrats opted against election-year battles with Republicans and former President George W. Bush.
(Truth should be told, too, that the deficit is closer to two trillion dollars.)
I'm sure they'll also claim that Obama only has to reach deficits of $650 billion to "cut the deficit in half", as if the massive stimulus spending somehow equates to routine spending planned and implemented by President Bush instead of being the Democrat response to a recession.
The fact remains that the massive spending bills have all originated in the Democrat Congress and Obama fully supported all of them and signed the bills with the most massive deficit spending since WWII. The deficits and their lasting damage to the American economy are squarely in his camp.
But the bill ran into an unexpected political hailstorm in Congress after Obama's spending-heavy economic stimulus bill and his 2010 budget plan, which forecast a $1.8 trillion deficit for the current budget year.
Just a reminder: President Bush's last fiscal year deficit in 2008 was $410 billion dollars which itself was a step up from the fiscal year 2007 budget deficit of only $162 billion dollars. If Obama's last two deficits were to be that small you can be they would be claiming another economic "miracle" had occurred. Bush's planned fiscal year 2009 deficit was only $407 billion and both fy 2008 and fy 2009 contained massive increases in spending passed by the Democrat controlled Congress.
So much for the Democrats being the "party of fiscal responsibility", eh?
No wonder Obama has to beg federal employees to help him cut spending.
The $410 billion bill includes significant increases in food aid for the poor, energy research and other programs. It was supposed to have been completed last fall, but Democrats opted against election-year battles with Republicans and former President George W. Bush.
(Truth should be told, too, that the deficit is closer to two trillion dollars.)
I'm sure they'll also claim that Obama only has to reach deficits of $650 billion to "cut the deficit in half", as if the massive stimulus spending somehow equates to routine spending planned and implemented by President Bush instead of being the Democrat response to a recession.
The fact remains that the massive spending bills have all originated in the Democrat Congress and Obama fully supported all of them and signed the bills with the most massive deficit spending since WWII. The deficits and their lasting damage to the American economy are squarely in his camp.
But the bill ran into an unexpected political hailstorm in Congress after Obama's spending-heavy economic stimulus bill and his 2010 budget plan, which forecast a $1.8 trillion deficit for the current budget year.
Just a reminder: President Bush's last fiscal year deficit in 2008 was $410 billion dollars which itself was a step up from the fiscal year 2007 budget deficit of only $162 billion dollars. If Obama's last two deficits were to be that small you can be they would be claiming another economic "miracle" had occurred. Bush's planned fiscal year 2009 deficit was only $407 billion and both fy 2008 and fy 2009 contained massive increases in spending passed by the Democrat controlled Congress.
So much for the Democrats being the "party of fiscal responsibility", eh?
No wonder Obama has to beg federal employees to help him cut spending.