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O Lights Another Exploding Cigar

Posted on February 18, 2013 at 9:09 am

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Credit Scott Morales

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The cunning charlatan-in-chief has once again outdone and outsmarted someone… himself.

Just last month, one of O’s schemes exploded in the faces of his voters as if they were attending an exploding cigar festival and he was the doling out the stogies. O promised not to raise taxes on families making under $250,000. Then, with his keen focus and acute brinksmanship, he solidified the “Bush tax cuts” for 99 percent of the people that pay income taxes (yeah, Boehner got snookered; keep telling yourself that). That sounds good, right? Well, wait. There’s more. While he solidified those cuts, he simultaneously allowed taxes to go up on net to families that make under $250K, thus detonating yet another promise with the same sly agility as Wile E. Coyote.

The ashy fallout from this particular detonation is quite amusing, as it’s charred some of his voters directly. The O voters bought the bovine scat he was slinging, and those that actually get paychecks only realized what they voted for when they got their paycheck: less take home pay.

That must have been a funny sight. I wish I could have watched the brow furrow into a quizzical, confused look on the faces of the O voters when they got their paycheck and it dawned on them that they had been had. I mean, most of us are paying more, but at least those of us who didn’t vote for him knew what to expect. The O voters didn’t! That’s gotta burn a bit.

Now, another cigar lit a while back is finally about to go “bang.” This time, the ash from the exploding cigar he’s lit is going to mark O’s mug too. It looks like the sequestration cuts have a good chance of becoming reality, and for a guy that doesn’t think we have a spending problem, because he likes to spend other peoples money on nonsense more than Paris Hilton on a bender, the cuts coming with sequestration must sting. He must be scratching his head and thinking to himself in an incredulous Homer Simpson voice, “Wait a minute… we’re cutting spending? Who signed this legislation into law? D'oh!”

He’s already trying to snuff out the cigar by blaming the other side and claiming it was their idea, and that they said it wouldn’t happen. However, reports say the idea came from his administration, including Jack Lew, the current Treasury Secretary nominee and the then White House Office of Management Director. D'oh!

Regardless of where and by whom it originated, Obama signed it into law. If he didn’t think it should be law and wouldn’t happen, he shouldn’t have signed it. That would have been the responsible thing to do. But as is evidenced by this roaring economy that just contracted last quarter and the endless contention in D.C., he’s not responsible, at least not in any fiscal way, and he doesn’t know how to bring people together to accomplish something responsibly.

Now, is the sequestration a good thing? My view is yes and no.

I think it’s good in that it’ll cut some spending. And given the national bottom line with the average yearly deficits exceeding $1,000,000,000,000 a year for four consecutive years, we need to do that.

But no, in that it’s just a dumb way to do it. Tossing essential programs and services into the same bin as the non-essential and non-functional and then pulverizing the bin is just plain stupid.

But hey, I didn’t sign it into law. He did, and now he’s trying to maneuver out of it by scaring everyone that essential programs and services will be cut and doom will follow. I personally don’t believe that, but let’s take him at his word. If those are the results of the law, why did he sign it in the first place and risk catastrophe?

He and his defenders answer that as he had to make that deal because that’s the only way to get the congress to act in a way he wants. I say exactly. His inability to lead and persuade results in really ineffective and overly contentious government that passes really stupid legislation. He signed a law that he didn’t want or like because of his inability to get anything else. It’s that simple. That is failure of leadership, and pretending otherwise is wishful thinking at best, delusional partisanship at worst. He willfully engaged in this buffoonery and we’ll all pay. Him too. Here, have a cigar.

You've just read "O Lights Another Exploding Cigar" by Scott Morales edited from the original--posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home).

Keith F Thompson

2:29 pm on Monday, February 18, 2013

That's PRESIDENT Obama. Does the Patch not have editorial standards for addressing the President of the United States? Generally, even in editorial pieces, most reputable news organizations insist on addressing the President by name at least the first time.
This voter, and the bundreds of other voters I talked with during the campaign, did not vote for the President because he promised not to raise taxes on me. I voted for President Obama because he promised to not raise my taxes in order to continue a tax cut for the wealthiest one percent of taxpayers.
I was well aware when I voted for President Obama that the cut to payroll tax was intended to be temporary, and would have to be reinstated at some point. I am also aware that the raise in payroll taxes goes directly to Social Security and Medicare, a fact left out of this screed.
No doubt the "author" hopes for the usual knee-jerk reaction from the right that any and all taxes are bad, which they mutter even as they cash their social security checks, drive on public roads and eat at restaurants inspected by government health inspectors.
Your insulting implication that people who didn't vote your way were uniformed suckers might play well in the echo chamber of the Fox News fueled right wing media, but out here in the real world, voters knew what they were voting for.

Mike black

2:32 pm on Monday, February 18, 2013

So you are satisfied and comfy with the sharing of the tax burden now ?

Proud Conservative

9:04 pm on Monday, February 18, 2013

You voted for Obama because he promised no to raise your taxes to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy? Boy, he took you over a barrel too, eh? But that's the way he works....preying on the ignorant and politically naive with his smoke and mirrors show. To put it bluntly...."You've been had!"

Andrew M. Zuba

7:35 pm on Tuesday, February 19, 2013

If it's an opinion piece from a blogger originally posted on TGG how would Patch editorial standards apply? And if you seriously are atempting to deny that there is in fact a thriving community of low information voters then you have your head in the sand. I get the sense that you are a capital D voter, which is fine, but sadly it limits your ability to truly get engaged in productive policy discussions among and between the parties. As a registered Democrat I would no more vote Domocrat only then I would invest my 401(k) account in one stock. Makes no sense. I, sadly, was an uninformed sucker the first time. By the second I was sufficiently enlightened so as to realize I had made an awful mistake. Caveat emptor.

O Lights Another Exploding Cigar

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