Obama Recants?

And so it begins. In 2006, Senator Barack Obama voted against raising the debt limit, a vote his various spokesmen now characterize as a “mistake.” Accordingly, Mr. Obama is set to present yet another historic teleprompter reading on Wednesday wherein, on the heels of The Ryan budget proposal, he will lay out his own bold initiative. The public would be well advised to recall that for Mr. Obama, rhetoric is exceedingly cheap, and action, particularly that which would in any way displease the most ardent socialist, exceedingly hard to find.

What is Mr. Obama expected to say? According to various advisors and spokespeople:

(1) The debt limit must be raised or the effect would be “Armageddon-like” for the economy.

(2) Taxes must be substantially raised on the evil, greedy, rich, those making more than $250,000--or so, more or less--per year.

I’ll go out on a limb and predict:

(1) Taxes won’t be raised on the nearly 50% of Americans who pay nothing at all in taxes.

(2) Spending cuts, what spending cuts?

(3) Even more entitlement spending.

(4) High-sounding promises to win the future--or something.

(5) Increased spending on green energy boondoggles, high speed rail, education, anything that will waste huge amounts of money for no good purpose.

We can be absolutely sure that whatever he proposes will require far more government spending, a much larger government, and will further degrade a very shaky economy. There is, to date, no sign that Mr. Obama has changed his view that economic distress can only be addressed by means of much higher taxes and unfathomably greater spending. More after the historic teleprompter reading. Stay tuned.