CNHI News Service —
President Obama’s inaugural speech struck the notes expected on such occasions. He evoked our founding documents. He used words like “timeless” and “enduring,” and as with most Obama speeches, it was a fine performance. Yet after four years you know this president doesn’t always mean what he says.
To some extent, that’s true of all politicians, of course. But with this one it seems more so. He once promised to go through the budget “line by line,” but as time passed he became uncommonly resistant to reducing any of the numbers on those lines.
So when you hear him talking about remaking our government or reforming the tax code or making the “hard choices” needed to tame health care costs, the words slide by like so much rhetorical wallpaper.
What you do understand after last week is that he has little intention of doing things that seem obvious, imperative, essential to the country’s future. Given the nation’s fiscal dilemmas, what the speech seemed to highlight was a shocking dereliction of duty.
He suggested there’s no need to retool Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in any way. These programs, as Obama put it, “do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us.”
Never mind that he himself has admitted that if nothing is done about Medicare and Medicaid, they “will consume the entire federal budget.” But that was then. The latest word is what he told House Speaker John Boehner late last year: “We don’t have a spending problem.”
You watch all this with an almost ghoulish fascination, as you might watch a video of a bus careening down a mountain road, with the driver’s friends partying in front, drowning out a chorus of warnings from the back.
What’s that they say back there? Something about the driver being reckless. That without repairs the bus will crash. Something about hairpin turns ahead.…
Pay them no mind, the driver says. They have nothing to contribute. “We cannot mistake absolutism for principle,” he intones, “or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.”
The people in front cheer. Besides, the driver says, “Our journey is not yet complete.”
Yet without substantial upgrades, that bus will break down long before the journey is “complete.”
The modern welfare state is slowly collapsing not only here but across the developed world. Meanwhile, the president and his party, who have overseen a near-doubling of the national debt in four years, have refused to seriously discuss how things might be set on an even keel.
Since the era of chronic deficits began 40 years ago, most of the increased spending has been for social service programs, primarily Medicare and Medicaid — the costs of which have risen five-fold over that period. Next year, health care entitlement costs will further accelerate with the near-full implementation of Obamacare.
After the speech, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama walked down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, and the next day a photo of the happy pair, waving to the crowd, adorned the nation’s front pages.
A nice moment, but repairs to that bus can’t be put off forever.
Nor can the people who will need it in the future be fooled forever about its true condition, or the tax load they and their children will face for today’s refusal to act.
One promise Obama has worked hard to fulfill is his belief that government must “share the wealth.” But in blocking all serious attempts to reform entitlements, he is redistributing income less from today’s wealthy than from future taxpayers, increasing the risk that they’ll be forced to pay in the form of stunted economic growth and diminished prospects.
E. THOMAS MCCLANAHAN is a member of the Kansas City Star editorial board. Readers may write to him at: Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108-1413, or by email at mcclanahan@kcstar.com.
Opinion
Ignore those people in the back and party on!
- Opinion
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It takes a dad as well as a mom
Orlando Shaw earned his 15 minutes of fame with a dubious distinction: fathering 22 children with 14 women. The Nashville man’s story made news when the mothers of his children sued for child support.
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Excuses for data sweep sound hollow
Perhaps 2013 will go down as the year privacy and civil liberties became too inconvenient for government. Listening to assorted officials defend massive programs that scoop up vast amounts of data certainly gives that impression.
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I pay property taxes ... please fix my road
Imagine paying thousands of dollars every year in property taxes and at the same time watching your roads literally crumble under the strain of increasing traffic. Unfortunately, some won’t have to imagine this because I’ve just described your reality.
Maybe you have even asked your County Commissioner why property tax money isn’t being used to maintain your road. He probably responded, “Almost all of your property tax money goes to public schools. Only about 15 percent goes to the county and most of that is not for roads.” -
Vision 2020 conference loaded with speakers
I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer — playing in the water, grilling, enjoying time with family; maybe preparing for vacation. But for Oklahoma educators, I hope your plans include a trip to Oklahoma City, July 9-11 to attend the State Department of Education’s Vision 2020 professional development conference.
The conference is free to all Oklahoma educators. -
The Oklahoma Standard
The “Oklahoma Standard” was a term coined during our state’s response to the tragedy of April 19, 1995. The connotation has many layers: the standard of trained first responders, the standard of non-trained first responders (neighbors helping neighbors), the standard of our faith community, the standard of welcoming out of state relief workers that arrived to help. In short, meeting the need and answering the call without reservation or inhibition.
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The Mankato, Minn., Free Press: Stop gridlock on farm bill
The Mankato, Minn., Free Press: Stop gridlock
on farm bill
With a hopeful sound of gridlock cracking, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday that he will vote for the House farm bill even though he has “concerns.” He reasons that “doing nothing means we get no changes in the nutrition programs.”
He may be merely pragmatic but we’ll take it. Rural Republicans are tired of the delays and want the five-year subsidy measure enacted. -
Crazy Kim and the Tippy Twos
Kim Jong Un certainly seems crazy. But sound mind isn’t a requirement for predictable action. Tyrants often mask steady goals with wild behavior. One need only think of world pests like Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein to realize entire regions can be thrust into unwanted global crises.
Like Castro and Saddam, Kim Jong Un has made clear he’s dedicated to expanding his ability to harm America and her allies. The difference is, he has a nuclear capability, not a borrowed or boasted one. North Korea has a proven record of long-range missile development that could ultimately hit the American mainland. -
Don’t blame the President; it’s us
June 17 marks the 41st anniversary of the second Watergate break-in. This is a good time to take a look back and reflect on what can happen when a corrupt administration throws a protective cloak around the misbehavior of a gang of unscrupulous cheats, liars and crooks.
On the morning of June 18, 1972, millions of us were unaware of the festering corruption that would ultimately rot our confidence in the president. We did not know that his administration was using the FBI as a tool to wiretap telephones of reporters regarded as unfriendly to the White House. We were oblivious to the fact the administration encouraged the IRS to audit media representatives whose reporting criticized the president. -
2 bills aid Oklahoma students
I recently attended two ceremonial bill signings at the State Capitol to celebrate legislation I feel is of vital importance to Oklahomans.
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Time to roll back the Patriot Act
It’s time. It’s time for President Obama to live up to his own words. It’s time for Congress to do its job. It’s time to contract the ever-expanding national security state. And it’s time to roll back the Patriot Act. In Washington, elected officials are circling the wagons. The Obama administration claims that its Internet and telephone surveillance programs are legal; the ones we know about, indeed, are. But just because something is legal and can be done does that mean that it should remain so and continue to be done? No. Laws are made and unmade all the time. And the argument that vast, dragnet-style surveillance has stopped terrorists at the lamentable expense of privacy is exactly the same argument that the Bush administration made about torture: Better to sacrifice our principles and a few people in the hope of saving many.
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It takes a dad as well as a mom
