President Obama gave a speech last night about raising the debt limit.
Having become quite accustomed to have any politician twist the meaning of words beyond comprehension, I naturally expected his narrative to deviate from the truth in no short order. According to a transcript of his speech, significant distortion of the truth began with his fifth sentence.
One of the first four was, “Good evening.”
Maybe even that was debatable. Courtesy of the White House press secretary, here’s the full transcript of his opening remarks.
Good evening. Tonight, I want to talk about the debate we’ve been having in Washington over the national debt — a debate that directly affects the lives of all Americans.
For the last decade, we’ve spent more money than we take in. In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation’s credit card.
He was right about one thing : the prescription drug program is cost prohibitive. Yet POTUS conveniently forgot to mention the “expensive” program Bush created was opposed by Democrats for being too stingy with taxpayer money.
I cannot stress this idea enough. I’m tempted to “shout” in capital letters.
clemently A tax cut does NOT equal government spending.
Government spending describes funding the military, our legal system, and yes, social programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Plus student loans, research, and don’t forget, the “economic stimulus” spending of almost a trillion dollars, “Cash for clunkers” and a host of other failed programs designed to manipulate public behavior.
Government intervention in the private markets invariably has an unintended consequence. “Cash for clunkers” cost taxpayers a whopping $24,000 per car.
We could have simply given people brand new cars for that kind of money.
Priced a used car lately? The unintended consequence of the program was to artificially raise the price of used cars by removing competition from the market.
The stimulus cost an average of $278,000 per job created. Next time, just give me the money and I’ll start a new business.
It is also a provable fact that raising taxes does not necessarily equal more revenue into the treasury. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1980, the highest marginal income tax rate was 70%. When he left office, the highest income tax bracket was down to 28% on the highest wage earners.
Revenue pouring into the treasury almost doubled from around $500 billion to almost $1 trillion dollars during the decade.
It is certainly true that deficits increased at the same time because Democrats in Congress (and some Republicans) can’t resist spending tax dollars on social programs that do not work.
Fraud and abuse threaten Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The solution to every problem is simply to throw more dollars at it.
However, the money they are spending belongs to the people who actually earned it.
If higher taxes will solve every problem, why doesn’t Obama insist that everyone making more than $200,000 per year pay 90% on earning above that limit?
Because history has taught us that people will stop working when the fruit of their labor is legally stolen from them and their wealth redistributed to the thankless masses.
The solution is simple. Politicians need to stop lying about what constitutes government spending and what does not.
Stop spending OUR money on extravagant social programs and stick to legitimate government business — defend our nation, and protect our borders.
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