"Tonight, I’ll lay out additional proposals that are fully paid for and fully consistent with the budget framework both parties agreed to just 18 months ago. Let me repeat – nothing I’m proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime. It’s not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government that sets priorities and invests in broad-based growth."
- President Barack Obama, 2013 State of the Union Address
Over the course of his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama emphasized the need to increase federal spending on education, infrastructure and green energy, and he claimed that this would not increase America's deficit "by a single dime." These are all noble objectives, but where in his speech did he explain how he intended to pay for all of this?
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, "The federal government ran up a $293 billion deficit in the first quarter of fiscal 2013." As such, the annual federal budget deficit is well on its way to topping $1 trillion for the fifth-straight year. If you believe that Obama's plans are not going to increase the deficit, you are surely also a believer in the Tooth Fairy.
In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Real Obama" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/opinion/blow-the-real-obama.html?_r=0), Charles Blow writes:
"Is this the real Barack Obama? I hope so. I like this one.
The president used Tuesday’s State of the Union address to detail a vision of America’s future, and his second term, in which the country is not in perpetual war, government plays an expansive role, Congressional obstruction is named and shamed and he is bold and unapologetically progressive.
This is how politicians who needn’t worry about re-election look: more like themselves."
Blow also doesn't trouble himself with the question of who is going to pay for Obama's "unapologetically progressive" program. The problem is that someone ultimately must pay for it.
Which brings us to Obama's nomination of Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense. As reported by Adam Kredo of The Washington Free Beacon (http://freebeacon.com/the-saga-of-hagel-and-haifa/):
"Hagel, who served as president and CEO of the World USO from 1987 to 1990, expressed intense opposition to the USO Haifa Center during a tumultuous 1989 meeting with Jewish leaders, according to multiple sources involved in the fight to keep the post open.
'He said to me, ‘Let the Jews pay for it’,' said Marsha Halteman, director for military and law enforcement programs at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), which led the battle to keep USO Haifa operational."
"Let the Jews pay for it"? Is this also indicative of what underlies the "real" Obama?
We have also learned from Alana Goodman of The Washington Free Beacon (http://freebeacon.com/arab-american-group-wont-release-hagel-tape/) that Republican senators are demanding additional disclosure of material from Hagel:
"Among the requested materials: the full text and details of several speeches Hagel failed to report to the Senate Armed Services Committee that have since been uncovered.
Fox News Channel on Tuesday reported on two speeches Hagel failed to disclose as requested, including one given in 2008 to the annual conference of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC).
The ADC is a controversial nonprofit whose conference last year featured speakers prominent in the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement targeting Israel. The 2012 conference also featured an award presentation celebrating an author whose essays include one titled, 'Zionism is a form of racism.'
The ADC also has not disclosed the full video of Hagel’s 2008 speech, while refusing to release its tax records as required by federal law."
According to Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/12/hagel-omitted-two-speeches-on-middle-east-from-senate-disclosure-forms/):
"An Obama administration official who has worked with the senator during his confirmation process maintained that Hagel has gone 'above and beyond' the Senate’s requirements, by supplying to the Armed Services Committee whatever evidence he could find – prepared remarks, transcripts and the like – for both formal and 'informal' speeches.
Apprised by Fox News of the two speaking dates from 2008, however, the official appeared not to have heard about them. The aide later responded that Hagel did not disclose these two speaking events because neither were formal speeches. 'It’s simply not true to suggest there was any attempt to hide anything,' the aide told Fox News. 'One event was at an academic institute – Georgetown, a Jesuit university. The other was with an organization that combats discrimination.'"
An "organization that combats discrimination," yet honors a speaker who claims that Zionism is a form of racism? Yeah, right.
By all means, let's review Hagel's speech before the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which purportedly is in an "archive" in Maryland and unavailable.
Another video which we are not being permitted to see? Does it remind you of something? It should. You will recall that The Los Angeles Times still refuses to release a video of Obama at a party honoring former PLO media spokesman and University of Chicago colleague Rashid Khalidi.
Meanwhile, as Obama continues to pursue abortive talks with Iran over its nuclear weapons development program as long advocated by Hagel [the US "shouldn’t even be thinking about options of bombing Iran" (http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/02/10/hagel-in-2008-video-us-shouldnt-even-think-about-bombing-iran-video/)], The Washington Post is reporting (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/iranian-buying-spree-raises-concerns-about-major-expansion-of-nuclear-capacity/2013/02/13/2090805c-7537-11e2-8f84-3e4b513b1a13_story.html?hpid=z1):
"Iran recently sought to acquire tens of thousands of highly specialized magnets used in centrifuge machines, according to experts and diplomats, a sign that the country may be planning a major expansion of its nuclear program that could shorten the path to an atomic weapons capability."
The "real" Obama? I think I prefer the "unreal" Obama. And yes, I have a sinking feeling that ultimately the Jews will "pay for it."
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