Sunday, March 1, 2009

An Ideological Budget

Well, it looks as if the Washington Post is beginning to do its job, reporting on what is contained in the President's budget blueprint, not what the President's staff SAYS is contained in the budget blueprint. The "$2 Billion" in savings has now been effectively punctured as budget magic, and the yawning gap between spending and revenue only gets bigger.

If I were part of a family making $200K-249,999K, I'd start to plan for higher taxes, as the $250K figure will soon go out the window as that which makes you "rich".

What we have here is a budget that reflects a huge ideological shift in American priorities. The President refers to it as emblematic of "the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November." It remains to be seen whether this is an accurate depiction of his mandate. I would suggest that he attracted more in the middle because of their confidence in him to "fix the economy". A large component of this "swing-middle" will walk away from his coalition if they come to see that their fundamental relationship with government is changed....and that's where this is headed.

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