What leadership doesn't look like

From Betsy's Page. A snippet follows then the link to her full post on the subject.
I would say the dear lady has the cinc by the stacking swivel with a pair of vise grips!


This is not what leadership looks like. This is what political opportunism looks like. WSJ explains the cynicism in Obama's budget proposal.

How unserious is this budget? Although the White House trumpets $2.18 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade, those savings are so far off in the magical "out years" that you can barely see them from here. More than 95% of the savings would happen after Mr. Obama's first term in the White House is over, and almost two-thirds of the promised deficit reduction would arrive after 2016. Pretending to cut deficits by pushing all real cuts into the future is Budget Flimflam 101.


From hard experience, we know that what matters are the cuts and reforms a White House is willing to make now. The Obama budget doesn't cut a penny from the deficit in the last seven months of fiscal 2011. Over the next three years—through 2013—the spending reductions in this budget add up to a paltry $20 billion net, out of a projected $3.5 trillion deficit. That's a 0.57% reduction in red ink and less than what the feds spend every two days.


As for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other entitlements, which account for roughly 60% of federal expenditures, the proposed savings are close to zero. The President would allow these programs to continue on automatic pilot, meaning they nearly double to $2.7 trillion in 2021 from $1.4 trillion in 2010.


Every serious analyst agrees that the time to fix these retirement programs is before 75 million graying baby boomers start collecting the benefits and voting as beneficiaries rather than as net payers. Meanwhile, Medicaid spending would grow by 115% over the next decade thanks to that renowned deficit reducer, ObamaCare.


The proudest White House boast is that its budget would cap domestic discretionary spending at current levels for five years. These are programs ranging from NASA to the Washington Metro to school lunch programs to wind turbine grants, which overall and including stimulus expanded by more than 80% in Mr. Obama's first two years. This spending freeze would cut these programs from 2011-2013 by a grand total of $14 billion.

Ah yes, change no one can believe in - simply keeping on doing the same thing, only more of it.



http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/2011/02/what-leadership-doesnt-look-like.html

A lot of smoke and mirrors. The smoke is being blown up your ass and mine. And I don't like it one bit.