Bait and Switch
Bruce McQuain points out this statement by Obama that is just staggering in its mendaciousness (emphasis added)
In a sobering holiday interview with C-SPAN, President Obama boldly told Americans: "We are out of money."
C-SPAN host Steve Scully broke from a meek Washington press corps with probing questions for the new president.
SCULLY: You know the numbers, $1.7 trillion debt, a national deficit of $11 trillion. At what point do we run out of money?
OBAMA: Well, we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we've made on health care so far. This is a consequence of the crisis that we've seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades.
WTF? The current deficit is because of health care decisions? What happened to TARP and that crazy-large trillion dollar "stimulus" package and Chrysler and AIG and GM and all those other bailouts? Sure, there is a looming Medicare bankruptcy, but that has little to do with the deficit numbers quoted.
We libertarians have always warned that the modus operandi of government is the following: The government creates a problem. Then the government uses that problem as justification for more government action. Repeat. Is there any clearer evidence than this from Obama? He wastes a couple of trillion dollars in his first months in office propping up the constituent groups who got him elected, and then blames the spending on health care, which gives him an entree to ... spend more money on health care.
I couldn't be more depressed about the state of our country than I am right now.