The gulf between the House passed budget plan and President
Obama’s speech to the Associated Press in response represents the same sort of
gridlock which has prevented any sort of legislative solution to America’s
fiscal problems during Obama’s first term: Republicans seek to slash the size
of the federal government by cutting expenditures and cutting revenue, while
the Obama administration seeks to eventually balance the federal budget by
cutting expenditures and increasing revenue. It’s election year politics at its
worst.
President Obama castigates the House budget plan as “thinly
veiled social Darwinism,” pointing out that the House bill reduces the deficit
by $5.3 trillion over ten years, while “spending” $4.6 trillion on lower tax
rates for millionaires in the same decade. Meanwhile, the Senate has not passed
any budget at all for the last three years. The irresponsibility of our elected
leaders from both political parties, in their refusal to work towards
compromise, and use of the budget process to create political talking points
rather than solutions to national problems, is simply mortifying.
