OBAMA ON THE STUMP – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  A lot of kids are taught by their parents always to have something to fall back on, some skill, some advantage.  If you're Barack Obama, you fall back on campaign speeches.  The president is best when campaigning, worst when president, so he's back on the stump:

CHICAGO (AFP) – US President Barack Obama accused Republicans of wanting to turn the United States into a "Third World" country as he rallied support for his reelection campaign.

The attack came a day after Obama savaged Republican budget plans and unveiled his $4-trillion deficit reduction drive that aims to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans in order to preserve key social services.
The debate over fiscal policy will prove critical to the 2012 campaign and Obama sought to frame it as a "stark choice" between investing in the future or watching the country fall apart.

"Under their vision, we can't invest in roads and bridges and broadband and high-speed rail," Obama told a select group of the Democratic faithful at the second of three fundraising events in his hometown of Chicago.

COMMENT:  Absolutely cynical.  Should we invest in the future?  Of course.  Is our infrastructure falling apart?  Yes.  You should drive some of the roads in New York State.  Broadband?  Of course.

But to invest you have to have the funds.  Spending most of your discretionary income on paying off huge deficits does not indicate good planning.  And to invest you have to get the economy moving, so the investment funds, tax revenues, come in without overburdening the taxpayer.

And to have good investments you have to get rid of bad investments, like a vast over-expenditure in "education," where no education results.

I don't envy the president's position, and I do not claim that he, or his party, are the only ones responsible for our current mess.  The mind-dulling leadership of some American corporations, and corporate sectors, have played their role.  General Motors anybody? 

But Obama is the national leader, and all he has done is piled on more government spending, with little result to show for it.  We need a more creative leadership in both parties, less beholden to interest groups.  The president can make all the reasonable points about the future that we wishes.  Without the cash, there is no future.

April 15, 2011