Obama has no plan to reduce our debt

April 20, 2011

Letter: Obama has no plan to reduce our debt

To the editor:

The current debate over government spending in Washington was invited by the Democrats' failure last year to write a budget for this current year. This forced a series of continuing resolutions to fund government.

As we have come to expect our commander-in-chief was nowhere to be found in this debate. Less than two months ago, the president put forth a budget that cut nothing, instead calling for $400 billion in new spending. Despite the continued begging from House Dems for his involvement in the budget process he chose instead to golf.

Into the void left by Obama jumped a representative, Paul Ryan, who devised a budget that tackles spending without huge tax increases, and without starving the government. He was invited by President Obama to sit front and center for the president's campaign kick off speech yesterday, only to be humiliated and demagogued by the president using his bully pulpit not to lay out an alternate plan — although he referred to "his plan" many times, as usual there is no specifics.

It is not leadership to give a speech, with no specific policies, nor any fresh ideas, but it is evidently what passes for leadership in the Obama White House. Obama chose instead to lie outright about the Republicans' budget, claiming that it does not have any money for autistic kids, grandmothers and the neediest among us.

The Ryan budget does lay out specifics, something the president is evidently afraid to do. It does not de-fund Medicare, it instead gives that funding to the people responsible for providing the services, the states, and allows them the freedom to spend it as their state and patients need it, rather than having to follow a mindless bureaucracy 3,000 miles away. It also reins in spending, recognizing that federal spending has increased 83 percent in only three years with little positive impact on the general public, but with an unsustainable debt and deficit.

At some point the president is going to have to realize that we can not control our debt by adding 10 percent per year to it.