Send In The (Tax and Spend) Clown

When President Obama addresses the nation today on his "vision" for deficit reduction he'll no doubt be more than a day late and a dollar short.  The White Houses' own fiscal commission, chaired by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, released their plan last November, 154 days ago.  It was quickly ignored by the Democrats and Obama himself.  Next, the President released his own budget for 2012 back on Valentines Day, some 58 days ago.  It was broadly panned as a joke.  Accordingly, the GOP weighed in just 8 days ago with the release of the House Budget Chair Paul Ryan's suggestions for 2012.  Ryan's plan, while viewed by both parties as a serious document, gives the left conniptions and the right a place to start.
So what will Barry's new vision provide?  HIGHER TAXES!

Apparently the agreement for this year's budget, which staved off (temporarily) a government shutdown last week, provided all the cuts that Obama and the Democrats will be willing to stomach any time soon.  All $15 billion, or just .03 percent of the 2011 budget, that is. Yes, that's right folks.  The $39 billion in spending cuts that were supposedly agreed to last week, which was an increase of $6 billion from the $33 billion they thought was agreed to earlier, which was half of the $61 billion that the Republicans voted to cut last February, which was $40 billion less than the $100 billion the Republican members of the House had campaigned on, is now, in reality, just $15 billion.  How's that, you say?  Well, according to story in the AP , “[T]he cuts that actually will make it into law are far tamer, including cuts to earmarks, unspent census money, leftover federal construction funding, and $2.5 billion from the most recent renewal of highway programs that can’t be spent because of restrictions set by other legislation.”  Swell.


If we're ever going to get anything accomplished in Washington, we may have to start another Tea Party to go after our incumbent Tea Party.  Just to show we really mean business.