By Rick Manning
As originally published at TheHill.com.
President Obama’s 2015 budget shows that his domestic policy is every bit as grounded in reality as his foreign policy, which The Washington Post declared this weekend to be “based on fantasy.”
Obama’s new budget reveals his economic Neverland where taxes that destroy private sector jobs can be hiked endlessly and government programs that pay the people dislocated by those taxes and policies are expanded or created out of whole cloth.
In Obama’s world, the military budget gets shrunk and our nation’s Army is weakened to pre-World War II levels while Russia engages in direct military action against Ukraine and China’s accelerating threats against Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and others are ignored.
In Obama’s dream world, a budget that busts the already increased spending caps the president signed into law just two months ago makes sense. After all, what’s an additional $56 billion in federal government spending amongst friends?
In the real world, the national debt has increased by $725 billion in the past five months.
In the real world, suppressing private sector economic growth by once again raising taxes when wages are at the lowest levels since 1999, and workforce participation is at levels not seen since Carter was president, can only be deemed a war on the poor. The victims of this war are those who otherwise would endeavor to climb the economic ladder to join the middle class or even become one of the wealthy instead consigning them to the despair of poverty.
In the real world, a president would never propose crushing tax increases and budget-busting spending in the face of a national debt that threatens to crush our nation’s second-to-none economic standing.
However, Obama is not existing in the real world. Instead, his budget makes one wonder if he might be auditioning for his next job greeting guests to “Fantasy Island” along with Herve Villechaize’s replacement. You can almost hear him lecturing, “Smiles, everyone, smiles,” as he greets a variety of his has been Hollywood supporters.
Manning (@rmanning957) is vice president of public policy and communications for Americans for Limited Government. Contact him at rmanning@getliberty.org.
