Rose-Colored Glasses

This blog, like most of the Internet commentary, has a decidedly negative flavor. Not so good ... ergo, I've decided to try, at least for this one post, to walk on the sunny side of the street. One of Ronald Reagan's strong points was that he was always looking at things through rose-colored glasses. And the genius of Barack Obama's first presidential campaign was it slogan, "Hope and Change." Accentuating the positive is almost always the better strategy. People like to feel good ... and therefore they like people who try to make them feel good.

So what is so positive in our lives in America today? We have a capitalism-driven growing economy ... the largest in the world. We have a plentiful supply of cheap labor to our south ... anxious to experience our American life. We have a premier higher-education system ... the envy of the world ... and one which keeps supplying us with gifted entrepreneurs. We have the geographic advantage of being isolated from most of the rest of the world by two large oceans  We have a very low inflation rate. We have a generally benign climate. We have a national park system that is the envy of the world. We have the world's best health-care professionals and technology. Despite continuing declines, we still have an enormous manufacturing capacity.

And we are currently not in a hot war draining our treasury and supply of young people. Most crime in this country is on the decline except in a few hot spots. We have a democratic-elected government and all the freedoms provided by our Bill of Rights. We are abundantly supplied with raw materials. We have a stable currency ... the basis of most world-wide commerce. We have the strongest military in the world. We have a very large middle class that supports our democracy and our way of life. We have an enormously efficient food-supply chain. We lead the world in most technological advances. We still carry a large surplus of prestige with most world governments.

Enough? Feeling better?

Yes, we also have problems ... but I leave these for later comment.

Rose-Colored Glasses

Yesterday President Obama released his budget … over two months late, but who’s counting?  The Senate and the House have already passed their budgets.  And, in typical Obama fashion, he is “leading from behind” or, maybe better phrased, “leading from his behind.”  Much of the left-leaning media is so impressed with the mere fact that he has done this rare feat … that they have given this document the benefit of the doubt on most of its lame assumptions. But this financial flight of fancy still grows our nation’s debt into the stratosphere … by almost $9 trillion over ten years (see: Breitbart Story).  And, in his patented “I don’t give a spit.” fashion, Obama even said that this budget doesn’t contain “a lot of smoke and mirrors” (see: Another Breitbart Story). Not a lot of smoke and mirrors?!? Wow!  Does anyone believe that it should contain any smoke and mirrors?

Senator Patty Murray was the architect of the Democrat's Senate budget which was seriously flawed by unrealistic GNP growth rate assumptions (see: Pattycake).  And Obama is following suit by also looking at the United States’ economic outlook through rose-colored glasses.  Even Politico points this flaw out in the following passage from its news blog: 

The faster the economy grows, the more taxes will be collected. At the same time, unemployment and low-income spending will decline. So good growth is a key to a better budget outlook. This administration projected growth of 3 percent in 2013, 3.6 percent in 2014 and more than 4 percent in 2015. Reality paints a different picture. Growth in 2012 was 2.2 percent and 2013 looks on track for another disappointing 2 percent. The gap between forecast and reality will not, however, stop another round of rosy assumptions.

To read more of this, see: Politico Story.  But, since the President’s budget was, apparently, not a serious policy document … but was, like most things he does, purely political, such Pollyanna-ish pronouncements were only meant for the Peanut Gallery (apparently the majority of U.S. voters) anyway.