OBAMA’S BUDGET SHELL GAME: MICHAEL GOODWIN
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/obama_budget_shell_game_9qhKQw7k6R76w6AqpeoZRK
A British politician once noted, “A lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.” He could have been talking about President Obama’s latest whopper.
Unlike so many others, this presidential prevarication isn’t limited to a single anecdote or speech. This one runs to more than 2,000 pages and weighs a reported 10 pounds.
It’s Obama’s $3.8 trillion budget and it is to truth what night is to day. To call it a “campaign document,” as Republicans have, doesn’t do it justice. Ditto for calling it a “wish list,” as reporters have.
It is a fraud, a scam, a wooden nickel, pure and unadulterated flimflam.
As such, it neatly captures the moral bankruptcy of Obama’s presidency. Trapped by the failure of his policies and the laws of economics and politics, he inadvertently reveals that he is serious about nothing except re-election.
Acting like a candidate running in a party primary instead of a president with a duty to govern, he glues reams of fictional numbers to the fantasies of a community organizer. Presto — he’s a man with a vision of utopia he can read from a TelePrompTer.
To judge by his claims, he has adopted the credo that the end — four more years — justifies the means. Those means include a willingness to say anything that serves him. Freed from duty and facts, he submits his concoction to Congress as an official document under presidential seal.
The outrage is . . . where? In the fourth year of this national error, deviancy has been defined down so far that a monstrous dereliction of the basic duty to make a budget is met with a shrug of the shoulders. Apparently, we no longer expect any better from him.
This plan will get the same number of votes Obama’s last budget got in the Senate. That one was defeated 97-0. So the stalemate will continue and he will compound the lie by pretending it’s not his fault.
It has now been more than 1,000 days since Democrats, who hold a Senate majority, which is all they need for budget measures, adopted one. And Majority Leader Harry Reid, perhaps to spare the president from another embarrassment, refuses the simple formality of a vote this time.
“We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year,” he said, declining to offer even backhanded praise for Obama’s presentation. Reid knows he couldn’t muster more than a handful of votes for this hoax.
Conscience won’t allow most Dems to decimate the military, as Obama proposes. Nor will they follow him in refusing to recognize the debt and deficit as mortal threats to the nation.
Even party dead-enders aren’t in the mood to raise taxes on virtually every worker for yet another round of “stimulus.” They know rancid pork when they smell it and most aren’t interested in risking their careers to endorse it. With Athens burning, few want to follow the Greek model of economics.
It is tempting, then, to see a silver lining, to believe that Obama has had his turn and that his vision for America is now so exposed as a delusion that it and he will be swept aside.
But to judge from the polls, that is far too optimistic. Facts don’t always prevail and truth is often slow to get its boots on.
Besides, America is scared, and for all the country’s cynicism about Washington, lies from the Oval Office still can fool nearly half the people. Sometimes, the bigger they are, the harder they are to recognize.
Mayor puts church in lurch
There he goes again. Chalk up another mayoral mangling of the First Amendment.
“The Constitution seems to me to be pretty clear,” Mayor Bloomberg said in defending his decision to evict dozens of churches from city schools.
“I’ve always thought that one of the great things about America is that we keep a separation” between church and state, he told reporters Monday, “and the more clear that separation is, the more those people who want to be able to practice their religion will have the opportunity to do so.”
The mayor is confused, but consistent in his politically liberal interpretation.
His decision follows a Supreme Court ruling that the city could prohibit worship services, but not meetings or other religious-based activities in schools. The small congregations can’t afford places of worship, so they paid to use public facilities when schools were not in session.
It was a harmless accommodation for worthy groups, but the mayor didn’t like it. The court didn’t say the city must evict, only that it could.
Bloomy’s cold choice to evict reflects an odd view of the Constitution he demonstrated in other cases. In sympathy with Occupy Wall Street hooligans, he cited freedom of speech in letting them camp in Zuccotti Park for two months. Finally, the police moved in after a judge said tents were not protected by the First Amendment — a point repeatedly argued in this paper.
He also used First Amendment cover to push for a mosque near Ground Zero, blasting as bigots those who disagreed. He was confusing a land-use issue with suppression of religion, as there are hundreds of mosques in New York. Notably, his commitment to separation of church and state didn’t stop him from secretly using government officials to pave the way for the mosque.
The mayor turned 70 yesterday in good health, so there’s lots of time to get right with the Constitution. Let’s hope he does.
Quinn’s no-win
Considering Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s latest liberal sop, there are two choices: Either she doesn’t understand Economics 101, or she thinks we don’t.
Pushed by unions whose backing she wants for a mayoral run, Quinn is said to be ready to hike the pay for more private workers on city-subsidized projects. The “prevailing wage” would apply to workers on any project getting city subsidies, not just those at city-owned buildings.
The result will be another sneaky hit to taxpayers. Contractors won’t pony up the extra pay. They’ll just demand higher city subsidies to pass along to the workers.
Allah-ver Stone Jr.
In the midst of Iran’s building war against the world, Oliver Stone’s son has converted to Islam in the Iranian city of Isfahan, AFP reports. Sean Stone, a filmmaker like his wacky father, told the French news agency that “the conversion to Islam is not abandoning Christianity or Judaism, which I was born with. It means I have accepted Mohammad and other prophets.”
His words prove again the observation that “youth is wasted on the young.” As for Sean’s dad, what’s his excuse?
Newt ‘cue’less
Newt Gingrich is facing calls from some conservatives to quit the presidential race so Rick Santorum can have a better chance against Mitt Romney. Gingrich declines, saying he’s not going anywhere.
He can say that again.
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