Life according to Obama!

So, a couple of days ago it became official. A budget bill has been passed by both the House and Senate with great fanfare but there are implications that have generated little or no comment. And it’s about time somebody did. Just the kind of challenge I relish.

Never mind the fact that $3.6 trillion is a mind-boggling figure but this is only one small piece of the puzzle. Here are some highlights you may have missed.

Healthcare
According to the typically pro-Obama New York Times; “Mr. Obama asked Congress to set aside $634 billion in a ‘reserve fund for healthcare reform.’ He provided no new information about how to cover the uninsured, saying he would work out the details with Congress later this year.”

The Times also stated that Obama “would also increase premiums charged to Medicare beneficiaries …” No your eyes are not playing tricks on you. Obama is asking for a huge chunk of cash while offering no clue as to what he’ll do with it and at the same time he proposes to increase the costs to the most vulnerable.

Taxes
MoveOn.org financed by George Soros, while promoting the $3.6 trillion budget repeats the Obama mantra that it: “reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won’t go up one dime.”

Two truths need to be pointed out. First of all your “tax cut” amounts to $13 per week and it goes away completely after 1 year anyway. The other truth is even more insidious because the budget calls for a number of hidden taxes.

One of these is a cap-and-trade energy tax which according to the Wall Street Journal “would cost the average household in the bottom-income quintile about 3.3% of its after-tax income every year. That’s about $680, not including the costs of reduced employment and output. The three middle quintiles would se their paychecks cut between $880 and $1500, or some 2.8% of income.”

The Journal; also concludes: “Cap and trade, in other words is a scheme to redistribute income and wealth but in a very curious way. It takes from the working class and gives to the affluent; takes from Miami, Ohio and gives to Miami, Florida; and takes from an industrial America that is already struggling and gives to rich Silicon Valley and Wall Street ‘green tech’ investors who know how to leverage the political class.”

Jobs
MoveOn.org claims the budget “Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.”

However, the folks at FreedomWorks have this to say; “The numbers being used here, like the numbers used in the stimulus debate, are deceptive in that they hide the less rosy bigger picture. It is a classic case of ‘what is seen and what is not seen’ as described so clearly by economists Frederic Bastiat and Henry Hazlitt. What is seen are the jobs that will certainly result from the government spending $100 billion. What is not seen are all the jobs that are lost because the government has to take those $100 billion out of one part of the economy to spend it somewhere else.”

You’re starting to get the picture. This $3.6 trillion budget has nothing to do with stimulating the economy or making life better for the average Joe; unless, of course, you believe that the redistribution of YOUR income and government intrusion into YOUR life are good things.