President Obama: Fix the Damn Problem

It is your fault, after all

I don't pretend to be non-partisan, nor do I pretend that the GOP leadership is any great shakes.

But this "fiscal cliff" issue is entirely -- 100% -- the fault of Obama and the Democrats in Congress.

Both sides agree that the massive increases in taxes that are bearing down on us will damage the economy and will hurt tax payers at a time when we least need it.

“We're now at the point where in just four days, every American's tax rates are scheduled to go up by law. Every American's paycheck will get considerably smaller…It would be bad for middle-class families and it would be bad for businesses that depend on family spending,” Obama told the reporters after a meeting with congressional leaders.

But one man will not fix that problem with no strings attached: Barack Obama. One man is refusing to prevent more of your money from being taken from you. Why? Because of his bizarre obsession with soaking the wealthy.

Even though Obama's soaking will not reduce his deficits one iota:

You raise the taxes on the rich, it’s eight cents on the dollar on the deficit. It reduces it a trivial amount of money and he’s never put any political capital in entitlement reform or tax reform. Oh, we’ll talk about it here and there — never invested any capital in it.”

It is simple fact that if your taxes go up significantly next year, it is entirely his fault and the fault of his Democrat party. Obama is lying to you when he tells you anything different. The main stream media is lying to you; the Democrats are lying to you; the liberal talking heads are lying to you. I am so tired of being lied to by this administration and its supporters.

“This is not Congress’ fault,” Thomas said. “Congress is behaving like Congress. This is the president’s fault. The president needs to go to the country and explain why they need to get this done. He has never done that.” Former Newsweek editor Evan Thomas

The problem we face next week is that all our income taxes will go up unless something is done. That is the problem that needs to be fixed. Increasing taxes on the wealthy may be beneficial (I think otherwise) in the longer run; but the immediate problem is that more money will be taken from you and sent to Washington. One person is blocking that from happening. One.

We could start back in 2003 when the current tax rates were implemented. It was the Democrats who forced the rates to be temporary. If the Dems in 2003  allowed the tax rates to be permanent, we would not be having this conversation right now. It is exclusively the Democrat party's fault that your tax rates may increase next week.

Beyond that fact, we have seen massive, massive spending increases under Obama. Not just on the Afghanistan war, as some would argue; practically every aspect of the federal government has seen huge increases to their budget. The Obama government is spending rate is higher than it was during WWII. The highest ever.

The Democrats in the Senate have refused to pass a legally-required budget for 4 years and have rebutted every attempt by the House GOP to implement a budget. Four years of historic spending without the guidance of a budget of any nature. Obama has been spending on-the-fly, with no reard for expense of consequence for four years straight.

The GOP has tried to reign in the spending at every opportunity, only to have their bills killed by one man in the Senate, Democrat Harry Reid.

The single largest chunk of federal spending is "entitlements." Obama has done nothing -- not one thing -- to reform entitlement programs, reign in their spending, or even try to keep spending level. Quite the opposite, in fact. Obama has lowered thresholds and manipulated the rules to put more people on these programs. We are spending more than a TRILLION dollars a year on entitlement programs. $1,000,000,000,000 in a country of 300 million people. You do the math.

If Obama were truly concerned with preventing tax rates from exploding in a few days, he would simply tell Congress to make the current rates permanent. Done. Problem solved.

He can then spend the next days, weeks, months traversing the country explaining why we need to increase the taxes and on whom. He will have the attention of the nation on Inauguration Day and the State of the Union Address next month. Convince the people that increases are needed and tell the people to call congress and demand the increases.

The Republicans can spend the same time arguing against the increases, cutting spending, reforming entitlements, or whatever.

We can discuss all these issues after the "fiscal cliff" is resolved and we are not working from a position of crisis. No decision made under duress is a good decision.

The roof on your house is leaking and a major rain storm is coming. Do you want the roofing guy to come over and lobby you to install lifetime shingles? Heck no. Fix the damn leak and give me your sales pitch later.

If you go to buy a new car, will you get a better deal if your car is dead and you need a new car immediately? Or, will you be in a better position to negotiate if your car is running fine and you have all the time in the world to haggle.

The situation is the same here.

Fix the damn problem, Obama. Make the tax rates permanent. Later, we can chat.

I don't want my tax rates going up next week because of Obama's bizarre obsession with soaking the "wealthy."

We need a president; we have a partisan. We need a leader; we have an ideologue.

We have a problem. If only we had a president that actually wanted to fix it; imagine how much better off we all would be.