Obama’s Debt Ceiling Proposal Holds Taxpayers Hostage
To say that Barack Obama has a well-defined leadership style would be perhaps too complimentary. What Obama has instead is a style of crisis management masquerading as leadership. Time and time again, the president waits for issues of public import to reach a moment of absolute peril before publicly weighing in. It was his way in the debate over ObamaCare, over extending the tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush and now over raising the national debt ceiling.
On Monday, Obama took to the podium in the White House Briefing Room to deliver a risible diagnosis of America’s debt crisis. Among his insights: “What we have said is as part of a broader package we should have revenues, and the best place to get those revenues are from folks like me who have been extraordinarily fortunate, and that millionaires and billionaires can afford to pay a little bit more.”
What the president fails to grasp is that the roster of “folks like me” is extremely thin. The vast majority of individuals in the upper strata of the income tax code didn’t get there through self-referential bestsellers. Rather, they got there through building businesses from the ground up – and creating employment opportunities for Americans less fortunate then themselves.
Obama is holding those Americans hostage in the debt ceiling talks. After months of operating in absentia, the president has now reemerged, talking up the need for “the biggest deal possible” – a grand bargain that would include entitlement reform, spending cuts and – of course – tax hikes.
And now… the rest of the story. …..
Harold
