Morning Bell: ‘Investing’ Our Way to the Poor House
Conn Carroll /
Ka-thump. That sound you just heard was President Barack Obama throwing 95% of all Americans under the bus. In his opening remarks during last night’s press conference, President Obama said of his budget: “This plan will provide a tax cut to 95 percent of all working families that will appear in people’s paychecks by April 1st.” But pressed later by ABC News’ Jake Tapper about compromises he was willing to make to get his budget passed, Obama said: “When it comes to the middle-class tax cut, we already had that in the recovery. We know that that’s going to be in place for at least the next two years. … The bottom line is, is that I want to see health care, energy, education, and serious efforts to reduce our budget deficit.” Translation: enjoy your extra $13 a week while you can, because Obama is not going to fight for your tax dollars.
What Obama is going to fight for is massive increases in government spending; or, as he likes to call them, “investments.” Obama said the words “invest” or “investments” 22 times last night. He is staking his entire presidency on the belief that government made decisions are a wiser and more efficient allocator of resources than the millions of individual decisions Americans make every day through a functioning free market. Obama believes massive new federal spending and control of the health, education, and energy sectors will lead to better economic growth.
He is wrong. Between 1984 and 2004, real government per pupil expenditures increased by 49% and yet reading scores and high school graduation rates have either remained flat or declined. The federal government has been subsidizing “alternative” energy since the 70s and yet, alternative energies such as wind and solar power contribute only 1% of our nation’s energy needs. On health care the only thing sure about Obama’s plans is that they expand coverage in ways that explode costs, while his cost reduction measures fall short of the fundamental reforms needed contain costs. If government controlled health care were such an economic life saver, then why is all of Europe in the same economic mess we are in?