Integrity and priority lists | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer

    The community organizer must have gotten a new speech writer. Otherwise, how could he be changing the tune quite so smoothly. Maybe because, when his Teleprompters are working properly, he reads well and can be quite convincing. It was only a few months ago that he submitted a budget that showed a $1.6 trillion deficit. Today he is talking about the need and importance of controlling our spending and our national debt. He has repeatedly demonstrated that he can do a 180 degree turn without losing any momentum. Oh yes, he can...He has shown us over and over - beginning with the "public financing" he was going to take (but didn't) when his campaign first started and continuing to the present with his "we need to control spending"mantra. And here he goes again. Do you suppose we will ever "get wise" to the way he operates??

    In fact he is almost starting to sound like the Senator from Illinois who ran for President in the 2008 election. He said that when he was President, he would go through every budget line item by line item and delete anything that is wasteful or isn't working. Well guess what?? He was elected President and when asked if he had done as he promised and did a detailed review of the first budget he submitted (in early 2009), his response was that it was a Bush Budget that he was submitting (so the promise wasn't operative). By the time the next budget was submitted (in early 2010, the first Obama budget), the pledge had been all but forgotten. By the time the next budget was submitted in early 2011, I don't recall anyone even asking about the pledge he had made as a candidate. And so it was until, the "Debt Ceiling" needed to be raised and some folks seemed to take a dim view of what looked to them to be totally outrageous spending. Spending that we could no longer afford. When you get to the point where something on the order of forty cents (yes, forty cents) out of every dollar being spent is borrowed (yes, borrowed), it is certainly time to take a little harder look at what many claim are profligate spending habits that we seem to have fallen into. Let's face it, John Maynard Keynes was wrong. Milton Friedman was right; and Thomas Sowell, and Art Laffer are still right.

    It turns out that the anointed one and his minions are a crafty lot. Take Timothy Geithner for example. He keeps setting "drop dead" dates by which the debt ceiling must be raised - but those dates seem to keep changing. But give him credit, the latest, Aug. 2 has stuck for a while now. We'll see how that works out.

    Think back to last year when the argument du jour was the Continuing Resolution. After dragging out an agreement to the last minute, a deal was finally struck where upon the Prez rushed over to the Lincoln Memorial and announced to all the folks who were visiting there that through his good efforts, a CR deal had been struck. Absent the deal, he told them, the Memorial would have been closed. In the olden days, the big time threat when budgetary things don't go your way was to threaten to close the Washington Monument. Apparently one "change" (as in Hope and Change) the erstwhile community organizer has brought to pass is that now it's the Lincoln Memorial that will be closed instead of the Washington Monument. We are left wondering if he has ever visited either one. Had he visited them both, he would have known that to close the Washington Monument you lock the door. That keeps people from being able to enter the monument and access the stairs or elevator. You close and lock the door and the Washington Monument is closed. On the other hand, closing the Lincoln Memorial is quite another matter. It is a large rectangular edifice with gigantic marble columns around the sides and front with a solid wall at the rear. A large statue of a seated Lincoln is backed up to the center of the wall. It has no fence, no walls (other than the rear wall), no doors (other than a door at the side that takes you under the edifice into the non-public area). It would be considerably more difficult to "close". Perhaps the Prez had in mind to erect a tall fence around the monument. That would have kept a number of carpenters busy for several days and would certainly help to improve the unemployment situation. It seems more likely that before the "Continuing Resolution" deal, he had never even visited either of these great tributes to two of our greatest Presidents. For shame!!

    Back to the national debt ceiling. We, the long suffering tax payers, find ourselves in a rather awkward position. If the debt ceiling is not lifted and the government is forced to live within its means we are going to have to make some rather unpleasant decisions. Whom do you suppose "we" really is?? Apparently it is Mrs. Geithner's boy, Timmy, and the Prez. We have already heard some unconscionable threats. We are threatened with letters to our Social Security recipients, our military fighting men, our medicare recipients and implicitly even to our bond holders telling them they will not be paid because of what those nasty old Republicans have done with the debt ceiling (which is not allow it to increase). Now, in a takeoff on the "close the Lincoln Memorial" gambit the Prez is telling us he can't "guarantee" that Soc. Sec. Checks, or military pay will be paid on time if the debt ceiling is not raised. That certainly makes it sound as though the least important thing on the Prez' agenda is the Seniors. We can only wonder where the GOP is on this. Why do you suppose they have not pointed out to those self same seniors where in the overall scheme of things the anointed one has them slotted. Sounds like seniors are rather low on the Prez' priority list. And where do you suppose AARP is?? Wouldn't you think that they would be right in the middle of the fray looking out for the seniors. They are likely too busy selling insurance to the seniors instead of looking out for them. Why do you suppose we have heard nothing about closing the Education Department (where in the Constitution does it make the Federal Government responsible for education??); scaling back the Agricultural subsidy programs (where in the Constitution is the Federal Government made responsible for guaranteeing a profit for our farmers - or anyone else for that matter??); disbanding the NLRB which seems to be trying to take over the site selection function of our big businesses (well, at least one of 'em); and how about Ken Salazar and his entire operation; and Kathleen Sebelius and her entire operation; and all those Justice Department lawyers who simply will not quit trying to bring foreign terrorists to the U.S. for trial. (What do you suppose would be the odds of getting another jury like decided the Casey Anthony case?? And are you really willing to take that chance??) Instead, let's go after the poor and the seniors. Yeah, right.

    That's what happens when as one of the prime players, you also get to make up the rules. Clearly the "Hope and Change" rallying cry will no longer work. We have seen the Change and that has dashed the Hope. It's gone.. Perhaps it should be replaced with "Heads I win; tails you lose" which seems to be more in line with the Prez' mode of operation. There are people who would suggest that integrity seems to be in rather short supply in this administration.

    D'ya think??