Last Wednesday (April 2, 2014), that highly credible and recognized economics expert, Rev. Al Sharpton, on his MSNBC show PoliticsNation, sharply criticized Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)'s budget proposal, saying, "America is a place for everybody, not a place for dangerous ideas and a ruthless war on the poor!"  Sharpton said that Ryan's budget is "heartless" and "ruthless."  He also said "that it was 'scary' that Rep. Ryan is seeking to chair the House Ways and Means Committee, which holds authority over tax policy and many features of the social safety net."

Sharpton's remarks were also influenced by what Dear Leader Barack Hussein Obama said on April 2, 2014, at the University of Michigan:

They [those who oppose Obama's economic policies] just sincerely believe that if we give more tax breaks to a fortunate few and we invest less in the middle class and we reduce or eliminate the safety net for the poor and the sick and we cut food stamps and we cut Medicaid and we let banks and polluters and credit card companies and insurers do only what's best for their bottom line without the responsibility to the rest of us, then somehow the economy will boom and jobs and prosperity will trickle down to everybody.

But we believe in opportunity for everybody, more good jobs for everybody, more workers to fill those jobs, a world-class education for everybody, hard work that pays off with wages you can live on and savings you can retire on, and health care you can count on. That's what opportunity for all means.

After playing Obama's words, Sharpton then weighed in:

Opportunity for all. That's what the president was pushing out today.

Sharpton continued:

Meanwhile, Congressman Ryan's trying to pull that lighter out from underneath everyday Americans.  Today on Capitol Hill he defended his budget cuts to health care, to Medicare, to food stamps, to Pell grants for low-income college students.  Why?  Because we need to get serious.

PAUL RYAN on tape: So if Washington is serious about helping working families, or serious about getting families out of work back to work, then it needs to get serious about our national debt.  How do we do it?  First, we stop spending money we don't have.

We can't spend money we don't have, right?  Well, how about the fact that Ryan's serious budget gives millionaires a tax break of at least $200,000.  That's serious, all right - seriously flawed.

Sharpton then said, "America is a place for everybody, not a place for dangerous ideas and a ruthless war on the poor."  Well, Al, we have tried Obama's (seriously flawed) ways of including everybody since 2009, and what has it gotten us?

• National Debt: The national debt today (7 Apr. '14) stands at $17.6 trillion and is increasing.  Not all of that debt was accumulated during Obama's watch, so this fact is very interesting: at the end of George W. Bush's first term, the U.S. national debt was 64 percent of gross national product (GDP) – $7.6 trillion, or about $26,000 per person.  At the end of Obama's first term, the U.S. national debt was more than 100 percent of GDP – more than $16.4 trillion, more than $52,000 per person.  In fact, Obama has increased the national debt by more than the combined efforts of George Washington through George H.W. Bush.  And, Al, you may find quite interesting these statements by Obama in 2008 about how abhorrent debt is.
• Government Dependency: The U.S. has become very dependent upon the government, something Progressives/Liberals/Democrats (P/L/Ds) have encouraged by expanding the social welfare state to the point of bankruptcy.  Consider but one source of dependency: Food Stamps.  Expenditures on food stamps have doubled under Obama, from $40 billion in 2008 to $88.6 billion in 2012, so that one of every three Americans uses some form of government food program, and one of every six Americans (47 million) is currently on the food stamps program.  And the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in 2012 that more than 100 million Americans are currently participating in at least one of the fifteen USDA food programs, at a cost of $114 billion.
• Shrinking Middle Class: "A report from the Pew Research Center finds the number of Americans calling themselves 'middle class' has been on a steady decline since 2008, falling by nearly one-fifth to 44% from 53%.  What's more, a similar poll from Gallup finds the percentage of people who call themselves 'upper-middle class' has also fallen to 55% in 2012 from 63% in 2008."  Or "... the number of people self-identifying as lower and lower-middle has expanded 60%."  And middle class jobs have declined by about 2.5 percent since 2009, while lower-class jobs have increased from three percent to about nine percent.  And median household income fell from about $55,500 at the beginning of 2009 to about $51,000 in June 2012.

Not a word from Sharpton on these facts.  He advocates more of the same: the continued ignorance of economic reality.  But economic reality will come to the U.S., resulting in the collapse of society as we know it.  And the fact that Sharpton doesn't know beans about economics places his remarks squarely in the category of politics.  Whether or not you like Ryan's budget proposal is not the issue here – economic reality is.

L/P/Ds argue, however, that Sharpton (like Obama) is "looking out for" the poor – a socialist view.  Well, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, "Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess.  They [socialists] always run out of other people's money.  It's quite a characteristic of them."

So, Al, you do have colossal nerve to criticize anyone when what Obama has done is considered.  You can squawk and promulgate the socialist mantra, continue to promote borrow-and-spend, but economic reality will eventually come.  The money will run out.  Reality is simply unavoidable.

Dr. Warren Beatty (not the liberal actor) earned a Ph.D. in quantitative management and statistics from Florida State University.  He was a (very conservative) professor of quantitative management specializing in using statistics to assist/support decision-making, and has authored four e-books on the subject.   He has been a consultant to many small businesses and is now retired.  Dr. Beatty is a veteran who served in the U.S. Army for 22 years.  He blogs at rwno.limewebs.com.