When Barack Obama released, his budget, he claimed that it didn’t contain “gimmicks” and that he cost of the budget was so high because he fully funded Iraq and Afghanistan in the budget and didn’t use gimmicks. Jackie Calmes of the New York Times swallowed the line so completely that she called her story “Obama bans gimmicks, deficits will rise”. (Never mind that the ever skeptical Slate Magazine had a different view) Her second paragraph of her story said:
The new accounting involves spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Medicare reimbursements to physicians and the cost of disaster responses.
Yet, just a little over a month later, … Barack Obama is asking for more money:
Washington, DC — President Obama today submitted to the Congress a Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 supplemental appropriations request totaling $83.4 billion to fund ongoing military, diplomatic, and intelligence operations.
An overwhelming amount of this money — nearly 95 percent — is to move forward with the President’s agenda of ending the war in Iraq responsibly and his new strategy of refocusing the fight against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
These are things that Obama campaigned on since 2007. But he didn’t plan for them in his budget. His budget assumed that the US would break its agreement with Iraq to pull out (decided before the election), according to Slate:
In this manner, the Obama administration pretends that some of the Bush tax cuts are going to affect the budget years after they are set to expire. It also assumes higher Medicare physician payments than projected under current law requirements. The same is true with the accounting for the Iraq war. The baseline assumes the war will be funded at high levels for the next 10 years, even though Obama is planning to bring 100,000 troops home in the next 19 months.
You would think that would save money. But no. Obama needs more. His budget not only had gimmicks. it just had lies.
Dan McLaughlin
Moe Lane
Neil Stevens
Steve Maley
Also
Matthew (Diary) Saturday, April 11th at 6:25AM EST (link)Also, keep an eye out for the following argument that will crop up soon.
Conservatives are protesting taxes.
Taxes are going up to help pay for the wars.
Conservatives hate the troops.
I’ve seen this line of reasoning tossed out by posters in several news sites blogs and comment sections; so expect it (along with tea bag jokes) to be used to start attacking conservatives in force.
Lies With Only One Purpose....
wolfgang Saturday, April 11th at 6:58AM EST (link)The redistribution of the Nation’s Wealth and Income. For example, take the headline in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal for instance “U.S. Squeezes Auto Creditors”. In the meantime, picture Ron Gettelfinger laughing all the way to the bank, while the nations savers and producers are stripped of their wealth and their rights as THE OBAMBI Administration tries to save the UAW’s jobs at their expense.
GM is planning on producing a two wheeled scooter? Imagine the jobs and technology that will create? Fabricated in some Asian backwater lagoon, boxed and freighted to the states. Oh, wait a minute, the ships will all be hijacked by Somali Pirates and held for ransom, in a world ocean shipping industry turned upside down and running amok because an American President refuses to give the order to do anything to right the situation for fear of offending the pirates sensitivies. Gulliver, once again, traverls to Lilliput.
Here's what "change" apparently meant
bk (Diary) Saturday, April 11th at 9:34AM EST (link)Obama during the first debate, in a question where he went on to say we needed
a surgemore troops in Afghanistan:So the “change” we got is that Obama wants a blank check and no timetable for Afghanistan. Ah, I get it. All those Code Pink morons knew that was what the “change” would be, right?
The budget process
benjjneb (Diary) Saturday, April 11th at 1:14PM EST (link)I think checking out this link might help you understand how the budget process works.
Obama has not passed a budget yet. The budget proposal being discussed, with Iraq and Afghanistan baseline, is for FY2010, not now.
The budget the government is currently operating with was passed under the Bush administration. As was the norm during these years, this did not include funding for Iraq and Afghanistan. Supplemental funding requests to fund these operations for this fiscal year is therefore necessary due to the budgetary norms under president Bush.
Hard to see a “lie” here if you understand how budgeting works.