Michael Barone: No Surprises

Michael Barone

National Review - Many more people have been unemployed for longer periods than in previous recessions, and many more have stopped looking for work altogether. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the threat of tax increases and increased regulatory burdens have produced something in the nature of a hiring strike. And then there is the political posturing. On April 13, Barack Obama delivered a ballyhooed speech at George Washington University. The man who conservatives as well as liberal pundits told us was a combination of Edmund Burke and Reinhold Niebuhr was widely expected to present a serious plan to address the budget deficits and entitlement spending.
Instead, the man who can call on talented career professionals at the Office of Management and Budget to produce detailed blueprints gave us something in the nature of a few numbers scrawled on a paper napkin. The man depicted as pragmatic and free of ideological cant indulged in cheap political rhetoric, accusing Republicans — including House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, who was in the audience — of pushing old ladies in wheelchairs down the hill and starving autistic children. The signal was clear. Obama had already ignored his own deficit-reduction commission in preparing his annual budget, which was later rejected 97–0 in the Senate. Now he was signaling that the time for governing was over and that he was entering campaign mode 19 months before the November 2012 election. Read full column here: News New Mexico

Michael Barone: No Surprises