Obama the Spender Goes to Washington

March 5, 2009 — -- How lucky we are to have Barack Obama as president. He's already come up with a revolutionary idea that escaped his predecessors: He's going to scour the budget for ... "waste and inefficiency" "... go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs."

It's astonishing that no one has thought of this before. Who knew programs could actually be eliminated just because they don't work and waste taxpayers' money?

And he's making progress.

"[W]e have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade."

How will he do it? Here's an example: "Agriculture Secretary [Tom] Vilsack is saving nearly $20 million with reforms to modernize programs and streamline bureaucracy."

Amazing! "Modernize and streamline." It is indeed a new day.

Though he says he wants better not bigger government, Obama plans to spend a lot more money -- on medical reform, education, energy, etc. He also promises to halve the deficit by the end of his term. (Presumptuously he says, "first term.")

This is dangerous nonsense. Obama's budget numbers are laden with politically driven assumptions about a rosy future in which robust economic growth pays for record-breaking government.

Unfortunately, Obama is simultaneously working hard to delay recovery by imposing new taxes on the rich, toadying up to unions and trial lawyers, being ambiguous about trade and threatening all sorts of "activist" government that makes the future even more unpredictable. The new taxes are not just the direct assault on wealthy taxpayers, but indirect punishments, like his cap-and-trade plan for carbon emissions. His gifts to unions go beyond the outrageous "card-check" rule to the requirement that stimulus spending go to union workers who must be paid artificially high Davis-Bacon wages. All this will frighten off private capital and suffocate economic recovery.

Obama's budget also creates a $634 billion "reserve fund" for medical reform -- but only $318 billion is to come from higher taxes. Where will the rest come from? Where else? Savings squeezed out of Medicare, Medicaid and other medical programs.