The Budget Speech

14 April 2011 |permalink | email article

The most telling rebuttal in President Obama rousing speech about the GOP budget bill which the House passed today: “As Ronald Reagan’s own budget director said, there’s nothing ‘serious’ or “courageous’ about this plan.” The reference was to an interview that Talking Points Memo had with David Stockman last week.

Obama was unequivocal in arguing that the roots of the nation’s fiscal problems lie in the tax cuts of the last decade that were unsustainable. Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne Jr. commented that “the president raised the stakes in our politics to something more fundamental than dry numbers on a page or computer screen.”

While never mentioning by name Rep. Paul Ryan, an avid disciple Ayn Rand,  Obama condemned his reactionary budget proposal for what it is: an effort to slash government programs, in large part to preserve and expand tax cuts for the wealthy. “That’s not right, and it’s not going to happen as long as I am president.” He also strongly defended Medicare and Medicaid.

Reaction by would-be Republican presidential nominees was predictable. Mitt Romney said Obama’s proposals “are too little and too late.” Tim Pawlenty made news by not only rejecting Obama’s speech but also the budget deal reached by House Speaker John Boehner with the White House last Friday.

Boehner said, “Republicans, led by Chairman Ryan, have set the bar with a jobs budget that puts us on a path to paying down debt and preserves Medicare and Medicaid for the future” – disingenuous and too cute by half.

I thought the reaction of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman who’s flayed Obama as missing in action on the deficit-cutting plan – “The nation needs a president who believes in something, and is willing to take a stand. And that’s not what we’re seeing” - very compelling. 

Krugman said he liked the way Obama made a case for government at the beginning…accusing the Republicans of abandoning a hopeful vision of America. “Good that he went after the Ryan plan – and good that he went after the cruelty of the plan. As for substance, “much better than many of us feared.”
 

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