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July 12, 2011

Re: Obama 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 ...

Victor Davis Hanson on why the president sounded so unconvincing in his press conference yesterday:

... (The president) has taken so many positions on the debt and taxes that it is hard know what his current one is, or whether to take it seriously, much less to gauge how long it will last.

He calls for more taxes, but in December reiterated -- after the midterm shellacking -- that it was unwise to raise taxes in times of uncertainty. Apparently that was then, this is now; perhaps he calculates that the tea-party angst has peaked.

He deplores threats not to raise the debt ceiling, but as a senator in 2006 voted, replete with lectures on fiscal sobriety, to do just that -- even though the debt then was $5 trillion smaller and the economy far stronger.

He talks of "eating our peas" and doing the hard work of getting the budget balanced, but had he his way, budgets for the next four years would have had even greater deficits. Obviously such calls for prudence are a result only of the 2010 elections and do not characterize his own reckless budgets the two years prior.

Now, more than half the country does(n't) know whether their president believes in raising income-tax rates or why, whether failing to raise the debt ceiling is nihilistic or a legitimate way to send a message, or whether their president really believes in fiscal sobriety or is worried about his own past massive borrowing only to the degree that it results in political jeopardy.

Is there any logic in all the inconsistency? ...

As Hanson goes on to note, the only consistency is one of 'ad hoc making-it-up-as-he-goes-along' ... making it impossible for anyone to know what the president will say about deficits on any given day, other than a rough (and often wrong) calculation of what he thinks will win in November 2012. Perhaps a bit more succinctly put, our Campaigner-in-Chief cares a lot about getting reelected ... and little else. As for the economy, Econ 101 has never, and never will in the future, be his strong suit.

Posted by Richard at July 12, 2011 12:17 PM

• Re: Obama 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 ... - Jul 12, 2011