How To Make Yourself Look Like a Con Man

Even assuming the best, this is so obviously a token gesture it makes it less likely that anyone will assume the best in the future:

President Barack Obama on Monday ordered his Cabinet to find ways to slice spending by $100 million, but acknowledged it's a "drop in the bucket" and said there's a "confidence gap" that he needs to overcome.

The theory of the current deficits is that the economy is so enfeebled that cuts would compound and be disastrous. I agree with that. But when the economy recovers, we're going to need to take big action to get the deficits back to acceptable levels. And by "acceptable" I mean "like Clinton," not "like Bush."

What Obama should have done is order his cabinet secretaries to develop contingency plans for cuts to come. He should have asked for proposed department budgets cutting five, ten and 25%, with an emphasis on totally eliminating a few functions rather than downsizing all equally into ineffectiveness.

I generally find President Obama's finesse admirable, but not everything can be finessed. In a couple of years he's going to need to get real about spending cuts, and the planning ought to start now.

Comments

[Frank]

Obama suffers from the same problem which affects most politicians; once in power they want to stay in power. The best way to do that is to pander to the people most likely to vote to keep you there by giving away as much money as possible.

Obama, like most ever President before him, is going to expand the government as much as he can.

I don't say this as a Republican, I say this as someone who wishes that someone, anyone, would find a way to shrink the government. Because G-d knows none of our current politicians, of either party, knows how to do that.

[Tom]

To stay in power, the President has to keep people happy. I honestly believe that staying in power now is going to require some changes in government. There are things government has to do less of, and things government needs to do more of.

I'm hopeful that the near-death experience of the economy and the undeniably horrifying deficits are combining to make the unsustainability of our current system obvious. Whether that translates into a willingness to sacrifice or not remains to be seen, but I'm hopeful.

The logic behind Pres. Obama being an agent of that kind of change hinges on two things: how dedicated is he to the additional things he thinks government should do (healthcare) and how much do we, the people, step up and demand accountability.

On the one hand, I think the President is pretty pragmatic. On the other hand, Americans love a something for nothing proposition.