01 Aug 2011 How to Really Win the Future, by Jerome Hudson

President Obama is an O.P.M. addict.

Our commander-in-chief is addicted to spending “other people’s money.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is his pusher. The establishment media are his enablers.

Consider what’s happening in Washington right now with the debt crisis.

After tossing the Republican “Cut, Cap and Balance Act” aside without debate, Reid dismissed House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) alternative plan to cut $1.1 trillion without raising taxes, saying it was “written for the Tea Party, not the American people.”

So Reid equates Tea Party members to illegal aliens?

Whatever his insult is supposed to mean, Reid insisted Senate liberals would not vote for the Boehner proposal to cut spending, raise the debt limit and allow consideration of a future balanced budget amendment that would appear to be in the spirit of Obama’s public call for balance and compromise.

When Reid was finally forced to put forth his own plan, it suggested little reform. It would raise the debt ceiling by a record-breaking $2.7 trillion while relying on getting many of its alleged budget cuts from defense expenditures in anticipation that our nation’s war on terrorism is drawing to a close.

CNN’s Piers Morgan — when not denying accusations of hacking phones in Britain — called conservative lawmakers’ anti-tax stance “crazy” and cudgeled them for not “compromising.” The New York Times ominously proclaimed that “House Republicans have lost sight of the country’s welfare.”

While the media spotlight focuses on conservatives, Obama is getting little scrutiny for his stunning lack of leadership.

The question that begs to be answered is since when is a presidential leadership defined by making America poorer?

If President Obama “wins” the debt ceiling debate and gets to borrow more from abroad, does America win? Without deep cuts to address our runaway spending, future generations will continue to get the burden of paying the bill.

Does Obama think bankrupting the future is the strategy for winning the future? Do our children deserve to inherit an America owned by our creditors?

Without the anchor of his own plan, Obama has had the luxury of demagoguing the debate. If our national credit rating is downgraded — which may happen no mater how much the debt ceiling is raised, taxes go up or spending goes down — Obama can blame conservatives in Congress for allegedly not compromising. But compromising with what? That’s the sticky situation.

Obama has done himself a grave disservice. His lack of leadership and subterfuge as crisis grips the nation will likely earn him a humiliating place in presidential history.

History books will one day read: Lincoln freed the slaves, Kennedy took us to the moon, Reagan won the Cold War and Obama spent America into submission.

What does this do to his fellow liberals? They risk being easily cast by their political opposition as reckless and committed to more taxes and more spending over reform and stability.

Since when did it become liberal or conservative to want the best value for the cheapest price or to want to live within one’s means?

Hard-earned tax dollars should be spent sensibly and have less to with ideology. But, in just two years, Obama has exploded the national debt and his spending binge created more debt than Presidents George Washington through Ronald Reagan.

While Obama’s defenders in the establishment media and on Capitol Hill seek to blame conservatives for any bad results of this debt crisis, conservatives should be steadfast in reminding people of the high costs of Obamanomics.

Seemingly lost on all the debt talk is the continuing high unemployment rate and stagnant economy. It’s too far along to blame George W. Bush. Obama owns the current economic morass.

Obama’s “stash” of O.P.M. is drying up. His spending binge has created a deluge of debt. If we don’t get our government to rehab soon, the addiction will be America’s undoing.

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Jerome Hudson serves on the national advisory council of the Project 21 black leadership network. Comments may be sent to [email protected].

Published by the National Center for Public Policy Research. Reprints permitted provided source is credited. New Visions Commentaries reflect the views of their author, and not necessarily those of Project 21, other Project 21 members, or the National Center for Public Policy Research, its board or staff.