Obama finally hits rock bottom

Beyond his centerpiece tax hike, the president has packed his proposal with a mess of phony savings. Amusingly, the president has included “savings” from forgone Iraq and Afghanistan spending that was never going to happen in the first place — and then counted interest that was never going to be paid on the money that was never going to be borrowed for the spending that was never going to take place. Meanwhile, the main drivers of deficits going forward — Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — are almost entirely sheltered. That leaves us with a real tax increase to balance fictitious spending cuts.

It seems like ages ago that the charming young presidential candidate, suffering because of his association with the racist crackpot in whose church he worshiped for decades, responded with incredible chutzpah, delivering a sermon on racism to the American electorate. Now, after having forced through trillions upon trillions of dollars in new spending on failed stimulus programs, a gigantic new health-care entitlement, and ineffective tax-break measures for favored political constituencies, the president has the gall to denounce the “profligate spending in Washington.” Never mind that he’s been signing the bills. Even the hated “Bush tax cuts” — the tax rates that have been the law of the land for a decade, since Obama was an obscure state legislator — were extended by Obama’s own hand. It is not as though he didn’t have the authority to veto them if he thought them bad policy; it was only the courage he lacked. To that deficit add one of wisdom, or even elementary economic literacy, and an annual U.S. budget deficit continuing to top the $1 trillion mark for the foreseeable future — such is the lesson of Monday’s speech and the proposal proceeding from it. We did not have high hopes for Barack Obama as an economic thinker, but he continues to underperform our lowest expectations.