Obama's Deficit Reduction Plan

Leadership. That's about it. To call it a plan is to insult anyone who ever worked hard to put together a plan. More Obamacare, tax increases, these are the big ideas? Get real. I refuse to comment further.

Odds and Ends

Late to the blogging due to working late and catching some March Madness. Missed San Diego State's historic victory, but caught UCLA hanging on against a "furious" Mich St comeback.

Good News:

In Miami-Dade, FL, we have another Tea Partyesque victory, albeit fueled by some welcome funding from a billionaire. From this morning's WSJ:

Anyone who thinks voter anger over tax increases, arrogant government officials and outsized public employee pay has died down should look at what happened in Miami on Tuesday. Mayor Carlos Alvarez, a Republican, was recalled by a vote of 88% to 12%. County commissioner Natacha Seijas was tossed out by a similarly lopsided margin. Hosni Mubarak wouldn't have lost an election by that much.

What incited the voter eruption was Mr. Alvarez's mishandling of a budget crisis and $400 million deficit. Instead of tightening spending, the mayor and city council approved an intensely unpopular 14% property tax increase to raise $178 million—though home values in south Florida have collapsed by as much as half. He supported pay raises for public employees, who already pull in more than the average Miami resident, and at a time when family incomes have been flat or falling. He padded the six-figure salaries of his staff because, he claimed, their work load had increased.

But how are they going to roll back the spending?

Other News:

Too little, too late? The U.N. voted for military action and a no-fly zone over Libya while Gadaffi's forces are moving on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. Check out this leadership?

France said it was prepared to launch attacks within hours, and Britain also indicated that it was prepared to act quickly. Initial strikes are likely to target air defense systems and runways; it was unclear whether plans were also in motion to strike at tank columns and other government ground forces headed east.
U.S. officials said that it would probably take several days for a full operation to be undertaken and that President Obama had not yet approved the use of U.S. military assets. Obama has preferred to let other nations publicly lead the response to the Libyan crisis, and White House officials said he would not appear on camera Thursday night to speak about the U.N. vote.

Several days? Are you kidding? This effort has been in the works for over a week. No doubt a plan for such a contingency exists. And France is more prepared than we are? Obama's fecklessness may yet result in thousands dead in Benghazi as Gadaffi promises "no mercy."

Meanhwile, math is dominating the headlines, Dean has the story. Note the lack of leadership theme:

Our President has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to be the post-partisan president he campaigned on but has not come close to fulfilling by working with a Republican-controlled Congress on entitlement reform but he too doesn't want to do Math 101 and has instead cravenly abdicated any leadership role in the budget process.

Voting Present - As Usual

President Obama doesn't lead. There, I said it. I don't know if he can't lead or won't lead, he just doesn't. He threw health care reform over the fence to Nancy and Harry and look at the execrable result. It goes back to his days as state senator where the record showed that he liked to vote present, like 130 times. The latest case in point is his budget. After getting pilloried by both left and right alike for its failure to make any significant progress against the debt, Obama held an "emergency" press conference this morning.

President Barack Obama defended his budget proposal Tuesday against criticism that it was too timid, as a bipartisan group of senators moved on their own to address the long-term spending issues the White House budget ducked.

Mr. Obama said he was confident the political parties would come together to find a bipartisan way to rein in the growth of Social Security and Medicare, and to overhaul the tax code.

But speaking at a news conference, he offered no details about what measures he could support, or about how talks between Republicans and Democrats might come about. He said he expected these matters to be addressed in the coming months.

That's right, he had zip, nada, zilch to say about what he would even support, much less what he would push for.

From Stephen Moore:

The overarching problem for Team Obama is that the budget contains trivial cost savings. In the first two years the deficit is actually worsened. Democratic deficit hawks are upset about the total absence of savings in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Mr. Obama explained his whiff on entitlement reform by saying it should "be a negotiation process" and that Republicans and Democrats need to get "in that boat at the same time so we don't tip over." It was hardly Harry Truman saying "the buck stops here."