PrintAugust 22, 2009
Have Obama's expanded deficits killed off health care reform?
Their economic predictions have not borne fruit, except in the sense of forcing through a stimulus bill that was geared more towards heaping loads of money on Democratic special interest groups rather than lubricating the engine of the American economy. Now reality hits the Obama White House: the economy is not living up to their palaver and their spending plans have sent our deficits soaring.
Politico's Amie Barnes and Eamon Javers report:
The White House is likely to dramatically increase its projected 10-year budget deficit estimate next week by nearly $2 trillion, senior administration officials said Friday.
Obama administration officials have concluded the economy was much worse last year - and tax revenues much lower - than they had initially assumed, which means that the estimated budget deficit will increase from $7 trillion to about $9 trillion over the coming decade.
The planned revision was first reported by Reuters, and White House officials confirmed that account for POLITICO.
There's no doubt the revision will be interpreted as bad news for an administration whose deficit spending has emerged as a political Achilles heel.
Obama administration officials have concluded the economy was much worse last year - and tax revenues much lower - than they had initially assumed, which means that the estimated budget deficit will increase from $7 trillion to about $9 trillion over the coming decade.
The planned revision was first reported by Reuters, and White House officials confirmed that account for POLITICO.
There's no doubt the revision will be interpreted as bad news for an administration whose deficit spending has emerged as a political Achilles heel.
This was a typical bad data dump on a late Friday afternoon; one more strategy the Obama team tries to use to bury bad news. The truth will win out though because the deficit news is so awful and because it now relates not just to Obama's handling of the economy but also his attempt to transform the health care system.
The inability of this administration-led by a President who is woefully, if not willfully, ignorant of basic economics and by partisan zealots to forecast budgets and deficits is not a surprise. What is a surprise is the political miscue in continuing to invest political capital in promoting a health care "reform" effort in the face of a rapidly growing deficit. This not only has helped cause independents to migrate away from Democrats but has also cost Obama an erosion of his own base. Now the deficit number will likely also kill off his radical program to restructure the American health system.
I guess that mob out there in the hinterlands have a much greater sense of how to manage a budget than our President and the team of tax cheats and hustlers that the liberal media have proclaimed as the best and the brightest.
