“Deception in Pursuit of Power” by Pat Slattery

The following article was originally published by Pat Slattery of Tne Free Market blog on February 24, 2012.

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Deception In Pursuit of Power

A quickie post about something I have mentioned before in other posts, but it’s so irritating that I am compelled to bring it up again.

The Obama administration, in its zeal to blame everything on somebody else, refers to the 2009 budget deficit as the deficit he “inherited.” Approximately $1.3 trillion dollars. What is never mentioned is that the 2009 budget was a Democrat document (Reid and Pelosi) and that it was never signed by George W. Bush because it was never presented to him for signature. Reid and Pelosi passed continuing resolutions until Bush was out of the White House and then the 2009 budget was signed by none other than Barack H. Obama.

The last budget G.W. Bush signed, the first budget of the Reid/Pelosi control of Congress ran a $641 billion dollar deficit. Prior to Reid/Pelosi, budget deficits were actually going down. The 2007 budget deficit (pre-Pelosi) was $162 billion.

What the Democrats actually “inherited” was a $162 billion deficit, which they then ran up until we arrived at deficits of over a trillion dollars annually. Keep in mind, our man Barack Obama was in the Senate as part of the majority when the deficit went from $162 billion to $641 billion, and when the 2009 budget with a deficit of $1.3 trillion was NOT presented to Pres. Bush to sign, and he signed it himself. Now, he blames the whole thing on Bush.

He promised to cut the deficit in half, which would only have taken bringing it back to the 2008 DEMOCRAT budget level. Can you believe those were the good old days? The first Reid/Pelosi budget deficit was half of what it’s been since a Republican last signed a budget. (To say nothing of those wonderful days when we actually had budgets.)

The dishonesty of this administration, the reliance on people’s ignorance of what actually happened, is astonishing.

One more tidbit to make what was supposed to be a short post into a long post:

Trying to head off criticism for rising gas prices, Obama tried to strike first by saying that the only Republican plan on energy has been drill, drill, and drill some more. He laughs at that plan, indicating that it hasn’t worked. But, there’s a problem… We’ve never really implemented that plan. ANWR sits idle. We have not opened up the coasts. His administration put a moratorium on drilling in the Gulf, and has since been delaying permits. Permits to drill are down 40% under his administration. He’s criticizing as failed a plan that has never been implemented. When we began sort of, in a small way, increasing exploration and production under Bush, gas prices went back under $2 per gallon.

Remember this: Drilling for domestic energy creates jobs utilizing (eeevile!) oil company money to do it, not taxpayer money. The government gets paid annually on their leases, which means a lot of revenue to the treasury when oil companies are allowed leases on public lands (and we’re not talking chicken feed, we’re talking about the potential of hundreds of billions in revenue). Even though new wells aren’t productive for years, the price of gas goes down because of the futures markets anticipating increased supply.

I started out wanting to like President Obama, despite disagreeing with his policies. I figured he was a good man who had a vision for the country I completely disagreed with, but that didn’t make him a bad guy, he could be a good guy with a mistaken vision. Now I find him dishonest, immature, and dangerous. He’s not a man of character. He’s a man willing to deceive at any opportunity to deflect responsibility and keep power.

Posted in: The Free Market Project