Scott Spiegel

If deficit spending is the way out of an economic downturn, as leftist economists like Paul Krugman keep telling us, then one way to characterize President Obama’s approach to reviving the ailing economy is “killing it with kindness.”

Another is “tough love”—not the kind where you force hard choices and self-discipline, but the kind where you shoot the poor beast to put it out of its misery.

James Clyburn, House Majority Whip, recently crystallized the Democrats’ position on fiscal responsibility when he announced, “We’re not going to save our way out of this recession.  We’ve got to spend our way out of this recession, and I think most economists know that.”

Here are some fun facts about Obama’s proposed federal budgets over the next decade:

•    The projected deficit for Obama’s 2010 budget is $1.6 trillion, which is 10% larger than the 2009 deficit, which in turn was three times as big as the record 2008 deficit under President Bush.

•    The projected 2010 deficit is 10 times as large as the deficit for Bush’s 2007 budget, the latter of which included funding for the troop surge that won the war in Iraq.  Hoping to match our accomplishment in Iraq, the White House Travel Office has approved a trip for Obama to go to Cambridge, Massachusetts in November to get a Democratic dogcatcher elected in Harvard Square.

•    The projected 2010 deficit will render our national debt 13% bigger on the last day of this year than it is today.  Projected 2010-11 deficits will cause the debt to swell 23% bigger than it is now.  By 2020, the debt will be twice as big as it is today.

•    By 2013 the deficit will recede to $700 billion, a “mere” half of the 2009 deficit, then ratchet up again to $1 trillion by 2020.  Even this will happen only if Congress agrees to drastic spending cuts before 2013, which it has already expressed strong resistance to doing.

•    All of these numbers are conditional on what many private sector economists call overly optimistic expectations held by the current administration regarding growth of the economy.

These sobering statistics raise a number of tough questions about the measures Obama has proposed to bring down the deficit—which, naturally, he will never satisfactorily answer.

For example: in his budget address on Monday, Obama stated, “Because small businesses are critical creators of new jobs and economic growth, the budget eliminates capital gains taxes for investments in small firms and includes measures to increase these firms’ access to the loans they need to meet payroll, expand their operations, and hire new workers.”

Why only small businesses?  Why not medium and large businesses?  Who adds more jobs to the economy—Sal’s Pizzeria, a local franchise of Linens ‘n Things, or Microsoft Corporation?

Obama proposes letting the Bush tax cuts expire for families making over $250,000 a year.  He wants to impose a new tax—sorry, “financial crisis responsibility fee”—on banks and corporations who received TARP money, some of whom were forced by the administration to take it.  Obama wants to strip away tax breaks from oil and gas corporations.

Why would Obama want to choke the engines of growth and job creation by saddling them with tax increases?  If the absence of a $5,000 tax credit would hinder a small business from new hiring, what does he think the addition of hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes to a corporation would do to their hiring?  Do big corporations hire workers out of the goodness of their hearts, with no concern for the bottom line?

Also, given that many of those families who make over $250,000 are headed by small business owners, how does Obama justify giving them tax credits while simultaneously increasing their taxes?  Is his administration even feigning consistency here?

History shows that cutting individual and corporate tax rates increases long-term tax revenue.  Obama was specifically asked about this proven fact by George Stephanopoulos during a primary debate with Hillary Clinton.  Obama stated outright that even if this pattern were true, he would still favor higher taxes on the wealthy to promote “fair” taxation.

Obama is free to endorse Marxist policies if he desires, but how can he turn around and claim that his proposal to increase taxes for the wealthy is an effective way to reduce long-term deficits?

When you’re handed a hot potato such as the sickly economy—a fate Obama has reminded us of precisely eight million times since he was elected office—the responsible solution is to let it cool down.

Instead, Obama proposes to cremate it.

Each of the two ratified versions of the health care bill currently waiting in Congress was barely passed, by virtually the slimmest margin possible, in a hectic last-minute stampede.  Dozens of harsh compromises had to be hammered out to cobble together the fragile framework now standing in each chamber.

The two bills are like delicate Jenga towers, swaying nerve-wrackingly in the breeze, that must now be reassembled by a team of 535 clumsy attention-seekers into a tower twice as tall.  But legislators across the two chambers—and even within them—are not even speaking the same language.

Here are a few of the myriad discrepancies legislators must reconcile to ensure that their monument to Obama’s greatness doesn’t fall:

In the House version of the bill, a government-run insurance exchange is created on a national level and includes a public option.  In the Senate version, exchanges are created on the state level and do not include a public option.  Virtually identical!

The House completely bans the practice 0f charging those with preexisting conditions higher premiums.  The Senate allows insurers to offer unlimited discounts for customers who engage in subjectively defined wellness activities: say, exercising, eating healthy, “not having contracted lung cancer”…

Insurance exchanges are implemented in 2013 in the House bill and 2014 in the Senate bill.

In the House version, employers are forced to provide insurance for their employees and pay a fine if they do not.  In the Senate version, employers are not required to provide insurance, but pay a fine for employees who opt for government-run insurance and receive federal subsidies.  The House has higher penalties than the Senate.

The House version funds the bill by imposing a surtax on families making over $1 million a year.  The Senate version establishes a tax on those with “Cadillac” plans, which includes not only many union members, but millions of families who will unexpectedly find themselves unlucky Cadillac owners over the next 10 years due to the non-inflation-adjusted nature of the provision.

The House version does not tax insurance offered by employers; the Senate version taxes employer insurance above a threshold.

The House version charges older people a maximum of twice the premiums as younger people; the Senate version sets a maximum ratio of three-to-one.  The House offers fewer insurance subsidies for the middle class than does the Senate.  The Senate offers weaker measures to limit out-of-pocket costs than does the House.

The House bill covers 5 million more people than the Senate bill by expanding Medicaid to those earning up to about $2,000 more than in the Senate bill.

The Senate version gives $100 million to Nebraska for indefinite coverage of all new Medicaid enrollees in the state (to buy Ben Nelson’s vote).  The Senate bill gives $300 million to Louisiana for Medicare increases (for Mary Landrieu’s vote); $10 billion to Vermont for new public health centers (for Bernie Sanders’ vote); billions to Nebraska and Michigan to waive nonprofit insurers’ excise taxes (for Ben Nelson and Carl Levin’s votes); millions to Massachusetts and Vermont for Medicaid; and millions to Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania for Medicare Advantage.  None of these provisions is in the House bill.

The Senate version includes, per the insistence of construction unions, an important exception to the employer mandate.  As an article in the New York Times titled “In Health Bill for Everyone, Provisions for a Few” reports, “Under the Senate bill, businesses with fewer than 50 employees would be exempt from the penalties in every industry but construction.”  In the construction industry, the mandate holds for employers with as few as 5 employees.  The House includes no such provision.

Restrictions on abortion funding are tight in the House, with no federal funding allowed; and loose in the Senate, with mere separation of federal and private money, and states allowed to make up whatever rules they want regarding abortion funding.

Coverage for illegal immigrants is not disallowed in the House; it is explicitly banned in the Senate.

It should be sobering for Democrats to realize that if just one Senator or two Representatives decide they can’t tolerate the alternative version of even one of these provisions, that will be enough to topple the whole health care reform edifice.

It’s no wonder, then, that Congressional Democrats now plan to merge the bills behind closed doors, shutting out all Republicans from discussion of the reconciliation process and preventing them from using parliamentary procedures to slow consideration of the bill and allow the public to digest the proposed changes.  Talking Points Memo cites one Democratic House aide who proudly admits, “This process cuts out the Republicans.”  The House will simply take the Senate’s bill, amend it, vote on it, and send it to the Senate; who will then amend the bill, vote on it, and send it to the House; and back and forth until some hideous, lopsided, structurally unsound blueprint garners enough votes in both chambers.

If Democrats had to merge these two bills in a public conference committee—never mind on C-SPAN, as previously promised and recently offered by the network’s CEO—it would take about five minutes for the cacophonous clatter surrounding their health care Tower of Babel to bring it crashing down.

In a survey conducted in early June, Rasmussen found that Americans trust Republicans more than Democrats on six out of eleven top issues.

It’s no surprise that Republicans lead on national security: after 9/11, when Bush implemented policies to fight terrorism, Republicans’ trust ratings skyrocketed, because Americans saw the problem at hand and liked the way Republicans were dealing with it.  Years later, Obama and other Democratic presidential candidates boasted how much more effective they would be on national security—a fraud they were able to perpetrate because Bush had kept us safe since 9/11 and the threat of attack seemed remote.  Even if Americans actually came to believe that the way to defeat terrorists is to love them, Obama soon co-opted Bush’s entire war policy, thus validating Republicans’ arguments for the past eight years.

So we know national security isn’t Democrats’ strong suit.  Perhaps to distract from their unpopular war agenda, Obama and the newly engorged Democratic Congressional majorities started talking about “a new era of transparency.”  After 384 Obama appointees turned out to be tax cheats, liars, campaign underwriters, and lobbyists, Republicans now lead on government ethics, the second-most important issue to voters.

When ethics didn’t prove to be Democrats’ trump card, Obama started traveling around the country handing out stimulus goodies and talking about projects and jobs funded by the Recovery Act.  Then ABC’s Jake Tapper started uncovering all of Obama’s lies about the nonexistent effects of stimulus spending, and economists deconstructed the lunacy of his “saved or created” jobs argument.  Now a plurality of Americans wants the unspent portion of the stimulus recalled.

In a desperate gambit, Obama took over GM and strong-armed Chrysler’s secured creditors into lousy bankruptcy terms.  The Fed spent $1.2 trillion to lower mortgage rates, which increased, and pledged so much spending that long-term interest rates are spiking.

So now—surprise!—the public trusts Republicans more on the economy, the top-rated issue.  As Rasmussen reports, “Voters not affiliated with either party now trust the GOP more to handle economic issues by a two-to-one margin.”  So the economy doesn’t seem to be Democrats’ ace in the hole, either.

In a sleight of hand, Obama then renewed his push for climate change legislation and health care reform—gargantuan spending boondoggles that would somehow miraculously save our economy, too!  Then Democrats rolled out their plans, and businesses that would actually be affected by the legislation ran screaming.

In Rasmussen’s report, Democrats get their “highest” rating for health care (47%)—but this was measured before we heard actual health care proposals from Democrats, before the AMA and the Chamber of Commerce condemned Democrats’ government-sponsored plan.  Democrats’ lead on the issue has shrunk 8 points just since last month.

The other issues where Democrats do “well” are Social Security (43%), education (44%), and abortion (41%)—all issues no one is making major legislative proposals about right now.

Democrats’ confidence ratings are like a shell game: whichever issues the nation is dealing with are correctly seen by Americans as more capably handled by Republicans, but Democrats are assumed to be wonderful—just wonderful!—on all the other concerns we don’t happen to be tackling at the moment.  As soon as Democrats get their hands on something and we see what they actually want to do to us, trust in their ability plummets, and they move on to another, more pressing priority.

The further the nation is from the reality of an issue, the more likely Democrats are to be trusted; the closer it gets to that reality, the more likely Republicans are to be trusted.

“Ending the war in Iraq” sounds reasonable—until you read the fine print and realize Democrats don’t care whether we win first.  “Renewing relations with the Muslim world” sounds kindhearted—until the president makes nominal demands to Muslim leaders and they start blowing things up again.

“Introducing ethical standards” sounds noble—until Obama nominates actual human beings to fill posts and we get a whiff of their backgrounds.  “Being the first post-racial president” sounds refreshing—until Obama nominates for the Supreme Court a former Puerto Rican separatist who thinks “inherent physiological differences” force judges to decide the way they do.

“Stimulating the economy” sounds invigorating—until it is translated into a 1,588-page doorstop that no one has time to read.  “Moving quickly to prevent an economic crisis” sounds prescient—until you find out that four months later only 5% of stimulus money has been spent and the administration is lying about funded projects.

“Cutting taxes on 95% of Americans” sounds generous—until you realize the things Obama wants can’t be paid for without raising taxes on current or future generations.  “Saved or created 150,000 jobs” sounds impressive—until the administration admits this figure is based on theory and not facts.

“Saving the planet” sounds conscientious—until you find out that it involves so many devious machinations and new ways to burden Americans that the Senate had to hire a speed-reader to recite the bill.  “Health care reform” sounds bighearted—until you hear that it will cost $1 trillion and that Democrats want a 25% national sales tax to pay for it.

You can usually tell when public figures accused of crimes are guilty—their supporters invariably take several steps back and make broad, abstract statements: “She’s an excellent teacher whom no one has ever spoken ill of!”  (But did she commit statutory rape with a student or not?)  “He has always worked to promote racial justice in his borough!”  (But did he accept kickbacks for minority contracts or not?)  “He has a lovely wife starring in ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!’”  (But—oh, never mind.)

Similarly, for strategic reasons Democrats like to keep things intangible, “big-picture,” “forward-looking,” “high-minded”—not concrete, detailed, present-looking, practical.

Every time one of their shells is revealed to contain nothing underneath, Democrats lose the public’s trust on that issue, but the trust always seems to pop up again elsewhere.  Instead of playing Whac-a-Mole with Democrats’ confidence ratings, Republicans should reveal their entire game as the swindle it is.