PrintMay 15, 2009
Obama Chutzpa, Deflection By Reflection
The Obama administration must be feeling the heat on the budget deficits, because the President is now deflecting by reflecting.
This from Bloomberg.com:
May 14 (Bloomberg) – President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.
“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”
Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”
No, he’s not quoting a citizen at a Tea Party.“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”
Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”
Reflection of emotion is a technique taught to the best telephone customer service representatives. The customer is angry so, instead of saying something like “calm down” or “don’t be angry,” the representative says, “Well I can certainly understand why you’d be angry, Mrs. Jones, because we sent you rotten fruit. We just can’t do that and keep good customers like you.” Immediately, the customer is placated. Works like a charm.
So President Obama, the author of unsustainable deficits, deflects criticism by adopting the stance of the critics. This is not Saul Alinksy. It’s Ted Bundy outraged at serial killers. Or, Barry Bonds doing a public service announcement against steroid use.
But wait, this gets better.
“WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) - High U.S. budget deficits are being driven by an economic crisis that President Barack Obama inherited, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said on Monday.”
So we go from Deflection, through Reflection on to Projection, as Orszag projects Obama’s expenditures onto Bush.
Now that’s chutzpa.
