What Barack Obama left OUT of his speech

I grow weary of the pontificating taking place on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The Democrats want to keep wildly spending with no restrictions. The Republicans are playing at making cuts, but none of them real. In the meantime, here are the things Barack Obama conveniently left out of his brief speech of casting blame:

1. The economic growth of America for the last six months is a dismal 1.3% under Barack Obama and Harry Reid's watch. Why do I say under their watch? Because Republicans have passed plan after plan all to be stalled in the U.S. Senate by Senator Harry Reid. Thanks, Nevada, really appreciate the stumbling block you gave us! But Obama didn't think it important to include that in his speech.

2. Democrats had four years to rectify our now $14.5 trillion debt. But instead, they added almost $4 trillion to it, and want to add another $2.4 trillion without the rectifying of our grossly bloated government and their spending habits. But NOW they find it convenient to be on television 24/7 pointing the finger at Republicans. But I haven't forgotten the last three years, nor have I forgotten four of the last four-and-a-half years had Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid at the helm of this economic American Titanic. But that also was not important enough for Barack Obama to mention in his speech.

3. The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Cut, Cap & Balance Act on July 19, 2011 (Daily Caller) and sent it over to Harry Reid in the U.S. Senate. What did Reid do with it? He and the Senate Democrats tabled it instead of listening to the persuasive, accurate, and passionate argument by Senator Mike Lee:

4. Not only has Barack Obama completely ignored the fact that Republicans are working day and night to solve not only the budget crisis, but the debt juggernaut as well, he's actively doing his best to kill any effort to begin whittling down our astronomical debt. Instead, Barack Obama, in collusion with Harry Reid, conspired to block every effort of the Republicans, to somehow keep from passing a budget through the next presidential election. Especially if that budget curtailed spending, and tried to start whittling down that same $14.5 trillion debt.

5. Not only are they opposed to bringing the wild spending under control and to strictly limit themselves to the boundaries of a budget. They are bitterly opposed to Senator Mike Lee's Balanced Budget Amendment.

Obama says, "We don't need a Balanced Budget Amendment, Congress just needs to do its job."

No kidding! That's the whole point, Congress hasn't done its job in decades, possibly even well over a century. Congress is never going to do its job because they are more concerned with their political futures than the future of America.

While I believe we will need the repeal of the 14th, 16th, and 17th Amendments before a Balanced Budget Amendment to truly work well, I completely support the Balanced Budget Amendment because each new amendment supersedes the ones before.

Moving on to my next point:

6. An excellent question was posed on FoxNews this morning by a viewer: "When can we look forward to seeing the debt clock ticking downward instead of spiraling upward?" You just can't put it any more plainly than that! There are no plans on the table that significantly cut our $14.5 trillion debt. Not Boehner's. Not Cut, Cap & Balance. Not Harry Reid's. Not Mitch McConnell's. Not Barack Obama's "never put it on paper" plan.

6. Yesterday, Charles Krauthammer, someone I usually respect, joined the Democrat litany of bashing conservatives across the board and telling them to just vote for Boehner's grand plan, which still does not do what is needed to keep America's credit from being downgraded. John McCain compared hard-working conservative Americans to Tolkein's "hobbits." Harry Reid called the same Americans "tea party extremists." And here's the conclusion I've drawn from that litany: We've been too successful in stopping the Obama agenda, although not successful enough. And believe me when I say, we are not stopping and no amount of grade school-style bullying will slow us down.

7. And that brings us to Standard & Poor and Moodys. Standard & Poor has said, very clearly, that unless they see a budget with real cuts to the tune of $9 to 10 trillion, they will downgrade America's credit. Again, none of the plans on the table, listed above, come ANYWHERE near to this. But still, the pontificating goes on, on Capitol Hill while they play at the crisis--while doing absolutely nothing!

So let's look what can be done!

A. Discretionary spending is 39% of federal budget. (White House) Discretionary spending is that part of the U.S. Federal Budget that is negotiated between the President and Congress each year as part of the budget process. It includes everything that is not in the mandatory budget, which are programs required by law to provide certain benefits, such as Social Security and Medicare." (FY 2012 Discretionary Federal Budget by Kimberly Amadeo)

Discretionary spending for 2012 is anticipated to be $1.3 trillion dollars. Now keep in mind, discretionary funding is a slush fund. It doesn't touch the budget of the 495 federal departments (and those are the ones we know about.) Barack Obama's budget had a $1.56 trillion deficit. That leaves us with a deficit still, so lets keep cutting.

So we have 39% cut already.

B. Foreign aid is 1% of the federal budget according to the White House, and is taken out the defense budget. So there's a cut the Democrats should be able to get behind. Tack that on and we've cut 40% of the federal budget and not added to the federal debt. In fact, we are now to the good and can take that extra and apply it to the debt. Now let's get down to actual numbers on three federal departments I think should be shut down permanently.

C. There is no need for the Department of Education ($535 billion,) the EPA ($3.8 billion,) and the Department of Agriculture ($149 billion) to be at the federal level. None whatsoever. If these responsibilities are given back to the states we will cut from the federal budget $687.8 billion. The states will take those responsibilities and make them profitable, as they are wont to do, and it's a huge win for 10th Amendment rights of the states.

So in essence, I have cut a monstrously huge amount of the federal budget without touching Social Security and Medicare. If we raise the Social Security retirement age two years, we save even more money. Cut the fraud from Medicare, and we save $60 billion more.

In other words, what is going on in Washington, D.C. has nothing to do with getting America back on track and everything to do with continuing the political games they have been playing for centuries! So here's my suggestion, call your congressmen, senators and the White House and tell them to stop playing politics and get down to the real business of getting the budget, deficits, and debt seriously under control.

And on that note, let's leave with a thought from Aristotle,

"It is also in the interests of a tyrant to keep his people poor, so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms and be so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for rebellion.”