Believe it or not there actually was a time when President Obama said we as a nation, needed to reform Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and he actually advocated for the very reform which is included in the Paul Ryan plan.
Alas, the personal goal of re-election has taken over doing the hard but necessary thing; and now the rhetoric of “class warfare” has once again to take center stage for this election cycle with Obama proclaiming the richest Americans are not paying their fair share.
Much has been written about how disingenuous it is to advocate such propositions when the truth of taxation and spending falls far away from the position of the president. Yet, even without a single day in office with any federal budget he will proclaim his fiscal credentials and espouse his opinion of being a fiscally responsible executive to the worlds largest economy.
We have shared extensively about the Obama financial hypocrisy, and perhaps it is a solid reference for others to re-familarize yourself and refer his advocates to a prior speech filled with similar tones and promises in June of 2010.
Listen to President Obama discuss the structural deficit, the economy and his opinion on resolution, there are some very informative, and in hindsight, highly hypocritical considerations which given the events over the past two to three years should be called into contrast.
At the 5:20 mark President Obama states his goal is to reduce the deficit by 50% by 2013 and discusses his budget proposal.
At the 10:02 mark President Obama repeats the deficit reduction plan.
At the 11:00 minute mark President Obama discusses the possibility of a looming crisis if the deficit is not addressed:
….. we also have to recognize that if markets are skittish and do not have confidence that we can tackle the tough problems of our medium and long-term debt and deficits then that also is going to undermine our recovery…..
At the 39:00 minute mark President Obama answers the last question about how can he ensure we take seriously the deficit crisis in the United States and what assurances he can provide the world.
His response to this is to point to “his” budget reform plan which consists of deficit reduction, a 2010 budget proposal, cuts to Defense, the Pay-Go legislation, his own fiscal commission, and the necessary entitlement reform which MUST be included in deficit reduction considerations.
…. (41:36) even if we had not gone through the financial crisis we still needed to be dealing with these long-term deficit problems. They have to do with Medicaid, they have to do with Medicare, and they have to do with Social Security all of these need to be reformed.
[…] this might not be good politics, but it needs to be done,… I think it is the right thing to do. Next year I’m going to be placing some very difficult choices to the country, I hope that some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt, err, step up, because I’m going to be calling their bluff and we’ll see how much of that political argument is real and how much is just politics…
How amazing it is now looking back to June of 2010 and recognize the difference between what he said and what he did. How he chose not to make those “right choices” that he felt were the “right thing to do” to reduce the structural deficit.
Instead his actions then and now are to frame an attack narrative against the Republicans, and now Romney/Ryan, for doing and proposing to do, what he initially advocated for.
This speech is obviously prior to the election of 2010 and the “shellacking” Democrats took in congress and the Senate. But it speaks volumes to why we are in this mess now and the absence of Presidential integrity.
Here is a link to the actual transcript But that was then, this is now:
