‘Credit’ for Deadbeat Nation

It’s no secret that I’m pretty critical of President Obama.

But in the spirit of being fair-minded, I sincerely try to give him kudos for anything he does which is positive. For instance, I certainly commend him for keeping ‘Gitmo‘ open (against his will, of course, but still...), and bombing the heck out of terrorists with our drones overseas, and ….hmmm, actually, that may be it.

Regardless, I still look every day to see if there is some new way, some how, where I can give Obama some credit, and yesterday I FOUND one!!!

Let me tell you about it…

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Like most of us, I was at work when the President spoke on Monday, so I didn’t get a chance to listen to his remarks or even read the transcript until late last night. I needn’t have bothered: I could have guessed at 85% of it in advance. It was deplorable in its entirety: a smug, supercilious man, repeatedly and brazenly lying to his audience (us) as he cast blame & aspersions onto everyone …but himself, of course.

Whiny, arrogant and classless: that’s President Petulant, alright.

Both NiceDeb and Cosmoscon have write-ups with their thoughts of the event, and I urge you to check out both of them. However, there was one part in particular which offended my ear even more than the rest.

Before we get going, please watch this clip. It’s only 3 minutes of the whole gig, but it includes the part I want:

Did you catch all that? First of all there’s this little gem:

“The issue here is whether or not America pays its bills. We are not a deadbeat nation. And so there’s a very simple solution to this: Congress authorizes us to pay our bills…If they want to keep this responsibility, then they need to go ahead and get it done.”

“If they want to keep this responsibility“? Excuse me? That sounds like he thinks he has the authority to change that “responsibility”, as if it was a gift from HIM which he’s considering rescinding. **Please note: whenever I label President Obama ‘imperious‘, THIS is the type of behavior to which I’m referring.**

There’s more:

“This is a matter of Congress authorizes spending. They order me to spend. They tell me, you need to fund our Defense Department at such-and-such a level, you need to send out Social Security checks, you need to make sure that you are paying to care for our veterans. They lay all this out for me, and — because they have the spending power.

And so I am required by law to go ahead and pay these bills.

Separately, they also have to authorize a raising of the debt ceiling in order to make sure that those bills are paid. And so what Congress can’t do is tell me to spend X and then say, “But we’re not going to give you the authority to go ahead and pay the bills.”

And I just want to repeat, because I think sometimes the American people understandably aren’t following all — all the debates here in Washington. Raising the debt ceiling does not authorize us to spend more.

All it does is say that America will pay its bills. And we are not a deadbeat nation”.  

Take your pick: pretty much each word in there is offensive. But I was particularly struck by that phrase: “…we are not a deadbeat nation”. I hate to break it to President Populist, but yeah, we pretty much are right now. 

What other interpretation could someone possibly have when a country (which is $16 trillion in debt currently), rather than limit their spending to what they actually have to spend…instead simply grants themselves the power to spend even more? When we have more people on Food Stamps, and on SSDI, and Unemployment, and…well, what else would you call it?

If you aren’t paying your own bills…, if you’re sticking the bill to someone else…, by definition you ARE a deadbeat.

‘Deadbeat Nation’ is the PERFECT way to describe us in the Age of Obama. And the truly ironic thing? Obama himself coined the phrase!

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See?? CREDIT.