Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Fiscal responsibility summit

Obama has announced plans for a "fiscal responsibility summit" next week:
Speaking Friday to business leaders at the White House, the president defended the surge of spending in the stimulus plan, but he made sure to add: "It's important for us to think in the midterm and long term. And over that midterm and long term, we're going to have to have fiscal discipline. We are not going to be able to perpetually finance the levels of debt that the federal government is currently carrying."

Along those lines, White House budget director Peter R. Orszag has committed to instituting tougher budget-discipline rules -- once the economy turns around. Those include a mandate that any "nonemergency" spending increases be offset by equal spending cuts or tax increases.
If Obama is serious about this then I applaud him, although it's rather difficult to reconcile this with the gargantuan stimulus plan. That said I noticed that some of the liberal blogs are freaking out about this so that's an encouraging sign.

My fear, however, is that having spent with abandon that Obama is going to use this summit as a justification for raising taxes to pay for it all. I really hope I'm wrong.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Let's extend this concept to the household budget level: When times are bad, you've had some losses, and your income is down, you spend like crazy to purchase everything on your dream list. When times are good, obligations are minimal, and income is substantial you employ strict spending limits and minimize non-essentials in your budget. Does this make sense? What are your chances of ever reaching those "good times"?