In a sobering holiday interview with C-SPAN, President Obama boldly told Americans: “We are out of money.”
C-SPAN host Steve Scully broke from a meek Washington press corps with probing questions for the new president.
OBAMA: Well, we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we’ve made on health care so far. This is a consequence of the crisis that we’ve seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades.
Of course not, the fact that we have upwards of 20 million illegal aliens on the arm (Thank you George Bush and Ted Kennedy) is no factor at all. The fact that medicaid and medicare are about to blow up (which many here have denied despite irrefutable evidence)that universal medical care (so called) will become the straw that brakes our financial back—-right—aforementioned are but paltry annoyances and distractions.
So, one option is just to do nothing. We say, well, it’s too expensive for us to make some short-term investments in health care. We can’t afford it. We’ve got this big deficit. Let’s just keep the health care system that we’ve got now.
Along that trajectory, we will see health care cost as an overall share of our federal spending grow and grow and grow and grow until essentially it consumes everything…
No—-what you do is you put stringent regulations on referrals, follow ups, prescribed meds, ambulance runs, smokers, the obese etc. People have to become aware that they are responsible for their own well being and must take preventative measurers and if you smoke and stuff your face you will be given limited healthcare. Hey—this is reality, not TV, and it is my tax dollars that are paying for the COPD, lung cancer, diabetes, CAD patients who all have self inflicted disease.
SCULLY: When you see GM though as “Government Motors,” you’re reaction?
OBAMA: Well, you know – look we are trying to help an auto industry that is going through a combination of bad decision making over many years and an unprecedented crisis or at least a crisis we haven’t seen since the 1930’s. And you know the economy is going to bounce back and we want to get out of the business of helping auto companies as quickly as we can. I have got more enough to do without that. In the same way that I want to get out of the business of helping banks, but we have to make some strategic decisions about strategic industries…
GM now says that they will require an additional 22 BILLION with an immediate 4 BILLION cash infusion. Sure—what the hell. We are going to give you upwards of 35 BILLIONS to have you go down the crapper in a few years. No problemo. And when that tab comes due—don’t be surprised when you see burning and looting in the streets. You think people are on the edge now? Detroit is looking at 13% unemployment. Unemployment nationwide may be 10.5% by September. California is on the brink of financial collapse. Why—-you know damn well why. The liberal/progressive giveaway—everything FREE for the undeserving
and illegal.
SCULLY: States like California in desperate financial situation, will you be forced to bail out the states?
OBAMA: No. I think that what you’re seeing in states is that anytime you got a severe recession like this, as I said before, their demands on services are higher. So, they are sending more money out. At the same time, they’re bringing less tax revenue in. And that’s a painful adjustment, what we’re going end up seeing is lot of states making very difficult choices there…
Ya right—and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus aon’t coming soon. California may be the first domino to fall. Massachusetts and NY may be shortly behind. Gee—-what do these states all have in common. Incredibly— many red states are quite solvent—-what a surprise. Go figure
http://www.drudgereport.com/fl…
Gross negligence, nonfeasance and malfeasance of Congress in the great mortgaage give away over a democrat and republican presidency and a republican and democrat congress. Blood all over everyone. How convenient to refrain from mentioning that.
<
p>Better start thinking on how you plan on surviving if the whole thing blows up— and it is not beyond the realm of possibility at this point.
if it weren’t for George Bush’s failure of an Administration. Not to mention the oil twins holding office for 8 years during which time oil prices more than quadrupled causing ridiculous inflation across the board on every product and service one would ever want to buy, so that what was once a living wage is now in all reality the high end of poor. The disastrous damage done to our country is going to take nothing short of a miracle to fix.
<
p>Since you support giving limited care to those who smoke and overeat, how about those who stress themselves out so much that they rant and rage daily, people filled with hostility, hate and anger permeating their very being. Is it up to me to pay for your high blood pressure medicine, or repair the artery damage done from excessive cortisol running through your veins.
<
p>It was GWB’s enthusiastic support of big profits that did not trickle down, big CEO’s, greed and lack of forward thinking that set the example for Corps, Banks, Auto Industy to think only of immediate profits and not the future. Personally, I think they should all be allowed to
fail. But no one knows the repercussions that would cause, so Obama has decided on bailouts. Maybe he knows what he’s doing. GWB sure as hell didn’t.
All Clintonistas! I one the one hand think they are all culpable. You seem to think it is only Republicans. No wonder our country is on the verge of collapse. The fox is in the hen house and no one is able to see him!
Truly tasteless.
…if the only link you provide is to the Drudge Report. Maybe red states do have budgets closer to balanced; many are required to by their constitutions. I would argue that blue states understand that in times like these money needs to be spent to support their residents.
Are we to cripple our entire economy to make good on fiduciary irresponsibility bordering on the criminal?
Are we to impoverish all the folks who hold jobs, in order that those who work under the table and collect some form of public assistance can continue in their theft. Are we to render penniless those who work two jobs to make ends meet so that illegal aliens can take advantage of USA and contribute nothing but fill our prisons, murder our citizens and rape our healthcare?
<
p>Take off the rose colored glasses.
I’m an unapologetic New Dealer in times like these – just a philosophical difference I guess.
Now I am to understand this is a delusion?
<
p>I cannot think of one red state (so called) that is in serious financial peril. Wer have but to look at our contiguous states and see that the entire northeast is in serious peril.
<
p>I have a keen sense of realizing the obvious, or as the judge stated, ” The evidence speaks for itself.”
That you do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of the budgets of all fifty states, your statement that “I cannot think of one red state (so called) that is in serious financial peril” is rather suspect. Thanks to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, we’ve got a handy little chart on the deficits all states were faced with going into budget season as a percentage of the FY09 general fund.
<
p>Arizona
Illinois
North Carolina
Massachusetts
California
Alabama
South Carolina
Rhode Island
Connecticut
New Jersey
Colorado
Utah
Georgia
Tennessee
Florida
Washington
Indiana
Nevada
New Mexico
Idaho
Mississippi
Wisconsin
Pennsylvania
Alaska
Vermont
Virginia
Oregon
Michigan
District of Columbia
Delaware
Missouri
Kentucky
Maine
Maryland
New York
Ohio
Hawaii
Minnesota
Louisiana
Kansas
South Dakota
Iowa
New Hampshire
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fin…
<
p>
<
p>And here I thought everyone was supposed to love us after Georgie took a powder. What was I drinking—-likely the Kool Aid.
Of course foreign banks aren’t going to like having additional restrictions placed on them, duh. That, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with Obama’s personal popularity with common people abroad.
<
p>In any case, the banks are simply playing a game of chicken. Push comes to shove they aren’t going to risk getting cut out access to the US financial system.
Here’s a two-minute drill in soak-the-rich economics:
<
p>Maryland couldn’t balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O’Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were “willing and able to pay their fair share.” The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would “grin and bear it.”
<
p>One year later, nobody’s grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller’s office concedes is a “substantial decline.” On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year — even at higher rates.
<
p>No doubt the majority of that loss in millionaire filings results from the recession. However, this is one reason that depending on the rich to finance government is so ill-advised: Progressive tax rates create mountains of cash during good times that vanish during recessions. For evidence, consult California, New York and New Jersey (see here).
<
p>The Maryland state revenue office says it’s “way too early” to tell how many millionaires moved out of the state when the tax rates rose. But no one disputes that some rich filers did leave. It’s easier than the redistributionists think. Christopher Summers, president of the Maryland Public Policy Institute, notes: “Marylanders with high incomes typically own second homes in tax friendlier states like Florida, Delaware, South Carolina and Virginia. So it’s easy for them to change their residency.”
<
p>All of this means that the burden of paying for bloated government in Annapolis will fall on the middle class. Thanks to the futility of soaking the rich, these working families will now pay Mr. O’Malley’s “fair share.”
<
p>Please add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum.
<
p>Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A18
http://online.wsj.com/article/…
the rich filers left because George Bush went home, they no longer had the need to be within earshot of GWB pushing for more tax cuts for the wealthy. Also, the big oil guys left too, no longer needing to be able to control Bush’s activities. Dick Cheney is gone now too, so all the buddies just went home.
Wow! George Bush and Dick Cheney had one thousand buddies living nearby bending their ear all the time, and that’s just in Maryland. Imagine that!