From “Hope and Change” to “I Inherited It !”

During the campaign season Barack Hussein Obama stayed on his message of “Hope and Change” and carried that into the White House with him. Now that change has converted hope into something of a distant memory Mr. Obama keeps telling anyone who will listen that he inherited a $1 Trillion deficit.

For rounding errors while the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recalculates the numbers for Obama and Co. The numbers don’t lie unless you are cooking the books and the Obama budget is a full buffet of smoke, mirrors and deceit. Imagine that ! 

CBO calculates that Mr. Obama’s proposals will increase federal outlays by $1.7 trillion more than the White House projects. Entitlement spending such as Medicare, Medicaid, and so on will increase by $1.1 trillion. In 2009 and 2010 alone, CBO estimates that Mr. Obama’s budget will increase spending by $347 billion more than the White House claims.

As a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), CBO says spending will hit 28.5% in fiscal 2009, which ends this September, and still be at 25.5% next year, staying at close to 23% to 24% of the economy for the next decade. CBO notes, this is “above the average of 20.7 percent over the past 40 years.”

CBO takes a “conservative” approach to their accounting method because Obama and his ilk are already planning more “stimulus” under the guise of massive spending. Obama says the CBO is simply pessimistic but the “temporary” spending is about to become permanent, which allows the miserable economic forecast to be more accurate than the one coming out of the White House.

None of this includes the proposal for “free” health care for the masses and taxing employee health care if that continues to exist. The Wall Street Journal reports that “Democrats on Capitol Hill are, with White House encouragement, talking about jamming health care through Congress with a special procedure that requires only 50 Senate votes.” (Emphasis LCs)

In this case, with the bulk of federal spending geared toward income maintenance and transfer payments that have political constituencies, that won’t happen. And that is part of Mr. Obama’s plan. One unstated but clearly implicit goal of his budget is to put in place spending programs that make ever-more Americans dependent on government and that will require a permanently higher level of taxation to finance. All of this is being done in the name of addressing income inequality.

Republicans have an obligation to slow down this express train to a European welfare state, and to educate Americans so that they put pressure on Democrats who claim to be deficit hawks. If this budget passes in anything close to Mr. Obama’s form, Republicans will spend the next two or three generations doing little more than collecting higher taxes from the middle class to finance the Obama revolution.

Revolution Comrade, no Hope, simply Change. Indeed !