[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

Strap yourself in because it’s a long one and my language gets a little coarse as we go on.  Seriously, you try reading this speech without cursing and/or throwing something…

So yesterday the President made a speech at George Washington University outlining how he would somehow save $4 Trillion from the deficit, in 12 years, as speech the Wall Street Journal said “was dishonest even by modern political standards.”  (And you should read the WSJ’s editorial, too.)  So let’s go through it together, shall we?

Now first he has some introductory B.S., the kind of crap that any politician will have at the beginning of the speech before we get to the meat of it:

From our first days as a nation, we have put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America’s wealth and prosperity.  More than citizens of any other country, we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people with a healthy skepticism of too much government.

Of course this is straight from the Obama book of political tactics where he says something that is unobjectionable, that suggests he “gets it.”  And as usual when he says this sort of thing. a few paragraphs later you will see that he doesn’t really believe in the reasonable principles he just enunciated.

But there has always been another thread running throughout our history – a belief that we are all connected; and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation.  We believe, in the words of our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves.

Well, this is a quibble, but those aren’t quite his words.  Here are his words:

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere. The desirable things which the individuals of a people cannot do, or cannot well do, for themselves, fall into two classes: those which have relation to wrongs, and those which have not. Each of these branch off into an infinite variety of subdivisions.

The first—that in relation to wrongs—embraces all crimes, misdemeanors and non-performance of contracts. The other embraces all which, in its nature, and without wrong, requires combined action, as public roads and highways, public schools, charities, pauperism, orphanage, estates of the deceased, and the machinery of government itself.

If you are not going to quote him, Mr. President, make it more clear that you are not quoting him.

But it seems to be a reasonable paraphrase.  The problem is that he doesn’t really adhere to the limitation—the requirement that it has to be something we cannot do this well for ourselves.  I mean either that or he thinks the vast majority of us are really not capable of very much.  And simultaneously one has to believe the government will do better, which is also often a dubious assertion.

And so we’ve built a strong military to keep us secure, and public schools and universities to educate our citizens.

Yeah, how are those public schools working out, Mr. President?

We’ve laid down railroads and highways to facilitate travel and commerce.

Actually the vast majority of the growth in the railroad has been by private industry with subsidies from the government.

We’ve supported the work of scientists and researchers whose discoveries have saved lives, unleashed repeated technological revolutions, and led to countless new jobs and entire industries.

Most of which was actually done privately.

Part of this American belief that we are all connected also expresses itself in a conviction that each one of us deserves some basic measure of security.

And thus each and every one of you will get a free pony.

We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, hard times or bad luck, a crippling illness or a layoff, may strike any one of us.

Really, Mr. President, and that is the only reason why dependency exists?  How about the knowledge that if you frak things up, the safety net will be there to catch you?  How about people who just decide its easier to game the system than to be prosperous?  What about them?

“There but for the grace of God go I,” we say to ourselves, and so we contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security, which guarantee us health care and a measure of basic income after a lifetime of hard work;

It only guarantees it if it works financially.  And it doesn’t.

And notice the attitude that success or failure in life is purely a matter of chance.

unemployment insurance, which protects us against unexpected job loss;

And simultaneously increases the cost of hiring a new worker, making companies less willing to hire.

and Medicaid, which provides care for millions of seniors in nursing homes, poor children, and those with disabilities.

So according to him, Medicaid is for not for all seniors, but the ones in nursing homes.  And not for all children, but for poor ones.  But, on the other hand, everyone with disabilities.  In his mind, every single disabled person is a ward of the state.

Well, this disabled person is not, jerk.

And that is not the only time he says that, as you will see.

We are a better country because of these commitments.  I’ll go further – we would not be a great country without those commitments.

Which means that according to him we were not a great country until the Great Society projects came along.  Good to know.

For much of the last century, our nation found a way to afford these investments and priorities with the taxes paid by its citizens.

Yes.  For instance social security is based on having the younger workers pay for the benefits of older retirees.  Which is easier to do with many young workers around, which means that you need strong population growth to pay for those programs.  Which means that liberal support for both Social Security and the right to abortion is deeply contradictory.

As a country that values fairness, wealthier individuals have traditionally born a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate.

I mean, beside GE, right?  By the way, as I said before, we do not tax wealth.  We tax income, i.e. wealth creation.  That is those who are the best at maximizing their profits pay the most.

Now, at certain times – particularly during periods of war or recession – our nation has had to borrow money to pay for some of our priorities.  And as most families understand, a little credit card debt isn’t going to hurt if it’s temporary.

Now again, this is Obama saying something that sounds facially reasonable, but he doesn’t really mean it.

But as far back as the 1980s, America started amassing debt at more alarming levels, and our leaders began to realize that a larger challenge was on the horizon.  They knew that eventually, the Baby Boom generation would retire, which meant a much bigger portion of our citizens would be relying on programs like Medicare, Social Security, and possibly Medicaid.

Notice that he admits that the lack of a new baby boom following that boom is a significant part of the problem.  But simultaneously this President went out of his way to make sure Planned Parenthood got more money.

To meet this challenge, our leaders came together three times during the 1990s to reduce our nation’s deficit.  They forged historic agreements that required tough decisions made by the first President Bush and President Clinton; by Democratic Congresses and a Republican Congress.  All three agreements asked for shared responsibility and shared sacrifice, but they largely protected the middle class, our commitments to seniors, and key investments in our future.

As a result of these bipartisan efforts, America’s finances were in great shape by the year 2000. We went from deficit to surplus.  America was actually on track to becoming completely debt-free, and we were prepared for the retirement of the Baby Boomers.

But after Democrats and Republicans committed to fiscal discipline during the 1990s, we lost our way in the decade that followed.  We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program – but we didn’t pay for any of this new spending.

Shorter Obama: this is all Bush’s fault.  Yeah, clearly he caused all of this massive debt, not you Barky:

He goes on a bit to bemoan things like the tax cuts.  Never mind that these policies kept our unemployment at six percent, which meant that people had more money, and thus paid more in taxes while also keeping more of their paycheck.  Most people call that a win-win, but not Obama.

He goes on telling how he was forced, forced I tell you, to spend like a drunken sailor:

On top of that, we faced a terrible financial crisis and a recession that, like most recessions, led us to temporarily borrow even more.  In this case, we took a series of emergency steps that saved millions of jobs, kept credit flowing, and provided working families extra money in their pockets.  It was the right thing to do, but these steps were expensive, and added to our deficits in the short term.

Except of course there is precious little evidence that all that spending did any of that alleged good.

And we have to do it in a way that protects the recovery, and protects the investments we need to grow, create jobs, and win the future.

Win the future.  Yep, WTF, Mr. President?!

And remember when a politician says “investments” he means “spending.”

Even after our economy recovers, our government will still be on track to spend more money than it takes in throughout this decade and beyond.  That means we’ll have to keep borrowing more from countries like China.  And that means more of your tax dollars will go toward paying off the interest on all the loans we keep taking out.  By the end of this decade, the interest we owe on our debt could rise to nearly $1 trillion.  Just the interest payments.

And that is all true, and to a significant extent, your fault.

Then, as the Baby Boomers start to retire and health care costs continue to rise, the situation will get even worse.  By 2025, the amount of taxes we currently pay will only be enough to finance our health care programs, Social Security, and the interest we owe on our debt.  That’s it.  Every other national priority – education, transportation, even national security – will have to be paid for with borrowed money.

Which is a lie.  It is even worse than that.

Ultimately, all this rising debt will cost us jobs and damage our economy.  It will prevent us from making the investments we need to win the future.

Please…  stop… using that phrase.

We won’t be able to afford good schools,

That assumes our schools are good now. They aren’t.

new research, or the repair of roads and bridges

You know judging by the rate of roadwork I witness, I am willing to bet that we could afford a lot more work with a lot less money, if we only eliminated the famous waste, fraud and abuse.

Businesses will be less likely to invest and open up shop in a country that seems unwilling or unable to balance its books.  And if our creditors start worrying that we may be unable to pay back our debts, it could drive up interest rates for everyone who borrows money – making it harder for businesses to expand and hire, or families to take out a mortgage.

All of which you are already causing, Mr. President.

And then he goes on to tell us we can avoid all the hellacious bad results, “but that starts by being honest about what’s causing our deficit.”  Which is where he pretends to somehow be all pragmatic, instead of a classic tax and spend liberal.

Most of us, regardless of party affiliation, believe that we should have a strong military and a strong defense.  Most Americans believe we should invest in education and medical research.  Most Americans think we should protect commitments like Social Security and Medicare….

Because all this spending is popular with both Republicans and Democrats alike…

Not with all Republicans.

And then he starts to claim that politicians on both side say absolutely ridiculous things that now he will refute.

politicians are often eager to feed the impression that solving the problem is just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse –that tackling the deficit issue won’t require tough choices.

Remember that phrase, folks, because those words are going to be highly relevant to the rest of this analysis.

Or they suggest that we can somehow close our entire deficit by eliminating things like foreign aid, even though foreign aid makes up about 1% of our entire budget.

Really, Mr. President?  Who has said that?

So here’s the truth.  Around two-thirds of our budget is spent on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and national security.

Yes, which means that those social programs are killing us.

One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates.  It’s a plan that aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years, and one that addresses the challenge of Medicare and Medicaid in the years after that.

Those are both worthy goals for us to achieve.  But the way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we’ve known throughout most of our history.

Seriously, what are you talking about?  We have not had Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid throughout most of our history.  (Not that Ryan has proposed eliminating them, anyway.)

A 70% cut to clean energy.  A 25% cut in education.  A 30% cut in transportation.  Cuts in college Pell Grants that will grow to more than $1,000 per year.  That’s what they’re proposing.

Right, and we have had those programs throughout most of our history?  Ah, that is right, I remember President Washington proposing the funding of hybrids and wind farms.  And education only fairly recently became a matter of significant federal spending.

These aren’t the kind of cuts you make when you’re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings in the budget.  These aren’t the kind of cuts that Republicans and Democrats on the Fiscal Commission proposed.  These are the kind of cuts that tell us we can’t afford the America we believe in.  And they paint a vision of our future that’s deeply pessimistic.

In other words, Mr. President, you would like to “feed the impression that solving the problem is just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse –that tackling the deficit issue won’t require tough choices.”  Good to know.

(Told you that phrase would come up again.  And  this won’t be the last time.)

It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them.

Again, not something we worried about very much through most of our history.  But more importantly, Obama, for a guy who always denounces “false choices” that is what this is.  We can fix the roads, without it costing  nearly that much.  Seriously, does anyone think the DOT only fixes roads?

If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can’t afford to send them.

Again, not something we worried about very much through most of our history.  And bluntly, if college is truly a good investment, that student can convince private banks to provide the loans.  And if they are not willing to…  then maybe it’s not such a good investment in that case.

And remember in the beginning when the President paraphrased Lincoln as believing “that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves.”  Are we saying that the government is better at figuring out whose education is a good investment?

Go to China and you’ll see businesses opening research labs and solar facilities.

Yeah, and you will see a corrupt government choosing winners and losers.  Is that a model to emulate?

No, wait…  don’t answer that.

South Korean children are outpacing our kids in math and science.

It’s not because they spend more money on it.

Brazil is investing billions in new infrastructure and can run half their cars not on high-priced gasoline, but biofuels.  And yet, we are presented with a vision that says the United States of America – the greatest nation on Earth – can’t afford any of this.

But you aren’t proposing to spend on any of this, but instead on all of this.  The spending of China, South Korea and Brazil, combined.

It’s a vision that says America can’t afford to keep the promise we’ve made to care for our seniors.  It says that ten years from now, if you’re a 65 year old who’s eligible for Medicare, you should have to pay nearly $6,400 more than you would today.

Free ponies for all.

It says instead of guaranteed health care, you will get a voucher.  And if that voucher isn’t worth enough to buy insurance, tough luck – you’re on your own.

So in 1996, the mean per capita spending on Medicare was about $5,000 per person.  Let’s pretend it’s that much today, even though it surely isn’t.  So why not just give that money to people in the form of a voucher?  Oh, right, because that whole bit about government only doing for people what they can’t do for themselves, was bull.

Put simply, it ends Medicare as we know it.

That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy.

Right, because the way to create wealth is…  to give more money to the government.  What was that about government only doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves?

By the way, if you scroll down in the speech, he makes it clear later that the $1 trillion in “new tax breaks” is nothing more than extending the tax breaks that are already there.  Here’s the relevant passage:

In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans.  But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society.  And I refuse to renew them again.

So let’s get this straight.  If you spend (as in actual spending, not pretending tax cuts are spending) $100 Billion on a program in a given year, and then spend only $99 Billion on it the next year, that is a spending cut.  On the other hand, if you tax the same amount of income by the same percentage from one year to the next, that is a “new tax break.”  Glad we cleared that up.

The fact is, their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America.

Right, reducing spending on these programs—instead of eliminating them entirely—is changing the compact entirely.  I mean if we eliminated Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. we would not be changing the compact.  We would be changing it back.  And, by the way, changing it to something that had the virtue of actually working.  But if we merely reduce the amount spent, it’s like abolishing the constitution or something!

But you know this is the usual Obama tripe… so predictable, so boring I can barely keep awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…

What?  Huh?  I’m awake…  really.

And of course he then reiterates the now drearily offensive idea that a tax cut is the same as spending:

There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

By the way, you know the Supreme Court has rejected that view, right?

But I love it.  So according to Obama, putting higher taxes on the rich is “courageous.”  As opposed to a being a form of political pandering itself.

There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill.

Right, that is what Obama is about.  Supporting groups without clout and/or votes.

Give me a break.  This entire speech is about standing up for groups that either already support him, or he hopes to win over with promises of free ponies.

The America I know is generous and compassionate

Generosity and compassion being defined as taking money from Peter to help out poor Paul.  You will see that later when he talks about how supposedly the rich haven’t been asked to contribute more.

a land of opportunity and optimism.

Which you are undermining.

We take responsibility for ourselves and each other;

If everyone “takes responsibility” for each other, then none of us are taking responsibility for ourselves.  You can have individual responsibility or collective responsibility, not both.

We are the nation that built a railroad across a continent and brought light to communities shrouded in darkness.

That was private industry, you know.

We sent a generation to college on the GI bill and saved millions of seniors from poverty with Social Security and Medicare.

Bankrupting the future with false promises to the elderly.

We have led the world in scientific research and technological breakthroughs that have transformed millions of lives.

Again, through private enterprise.

Today, I’m proposing a more balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over twelve years. It’s an approach that borrows from the recommendations of the bipartisan Fiscal Commission I appointed last year, and builds on the roughly $1 trillion in deficit reduction I already proposed in my 2012 budget.

Right, you are proposing deficit reductions already!  You have no credibility on the issue, Mr. President.

The first step in our approach is to keep annual domestic spending low by building on the savings that both parties agreed to last week

Oh yeah, that worked out swimmingly.  So the same guy who sold us a bill of goods, is now going to pretend to build on the savings that he didn’t really have in the first place.  Lord, the shit is piling up, here.

We will make the tough cuts necessary to achieve these savings, including in programs I care about, but I will not sacrifice the core investments we need to grow and create jobs.  We’ll invest in medical research and clean energy technology.  We’ll invest in new roads and airports and broadband access.  We will invest in education and job training.  We will do what we need to compete and we will win the future.

First, however many times you use the phrase, Obama, we are not going to start thinking that “win the future” was a good rhetorical flourish.

Second, it all amounts to you are willing to cut your sacred cows…  except for all your sacred cows.  Then he says on defense spending:

We need to not only eliminate waste and improve efficiency and effectiveness, but conduct a fundamental review of America’s missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world.  I intend to work with Secretary Gates and the Joint Chiefs on this review, and I will make specific decisions about spending after it’s complete.

Hey, you know, if you consulted Congress before attacking Libya, like you yourself said was your duty under the Constitution, we could have saved a lot of money there, too.  Because apparently this half-assed effort is not nearly enough, so either we are going to have to pull out and risk Gdaffy’s terrorist revenge, or we are going to have to do the full scale invasion of the sort you denounced when Bush was doing it.

The third step in our approach is to further reduce health care spending in our budget.

Ah, would that be the same spending that first you said would go down, and then you said everyone knew would rise?

Already, the reforms we passed in the health care law will reduce our deficit by $1 trillion.

No, it won’t.  He  made that claim by using accounting tricks that would make Jeffrey Skilling blush.  And remember when he denounced politicians who “feed the impression that solving the problem is just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse.”  Well, obviously he is not doing that here, right?

We will reduce wasteful subsidies and erroneous payments.  We will cut spending on prescription drugs by using Medicare’s purchasing power to drive greater efficiency and speed generic brands of medicine onto the market.  We will work with governors of both parties to demand more efficiency and accountability from Medicaid.  We will change the way we pay for health care – not by procedure or the number of days spent in a hospital, but with new incentives for doctors and hospitals to prevent injuries and improve results.

Oh, and best of all, death panels:

And we will slow the growth of Medicare costs by strengthening an independent commission of doctors, nurses, medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services seniors need.

Now, we believe the reforms we’ve proposed to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid will enable us to keep these commitments to our citizens while saving us $500 billion by 2023, and an additional one trillion dollars in the decade after that.  And if we’re wrong, and Medicare costs rise faster than we expect, this approach will give the independent commission the authority to make additional savings by further improving Medicare.

And this is the real reason why he doesn’t want vouchers.  He wants them all under the government’s plan so that they can make subject to a government death panel.

But let me be absolutely clear:

Those of you playing that drinking game must take a shot now.

I will preserve these health care programs as a promise we make to each other in this society.  I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit to pay for rising costs.

Right, instead you will make sure they are at the mercy of a government death panel with no other option.

I will not tell families with children who have disabilities that they have to fend for themselves.

First, we are not all helpless, Mr. President, and I am disturbed by your implication that we are.

Second, those families dependant on government services will be told that by your death panels.  Seriously how much money do you plan to spend to help a group of people that you apparently consider to be useless eaters?

While Social Security is not the cause of our deficit

Not even a little?

it faces real long-term challenges in a country that is growing older.

In part because liberals like you are so gung ho on abortion you want us to give it away for free.

But we must do it without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable, or people with disabilities

Again we have the assertion that all people with disabilities are unable to support themselves.  Screw you, Mr. President.

without slashing benefits for future generations;

Don’t worry kids, you will get your free pony, too.

and without subjecting Americans’ guaranteed retirement income to the whims of the stock market.

Instead we will tie it to the ability of politicians in Washington to honestly  confront problems like the deficit.  Because that is a much sounder investment.

The fourth step in our approach is to reduce spending in the tax code.

AAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!!!

It’s not your money, asshole!

[Okay, that’ s it.  I am hitting pause on my Tivo, I am putting the computer aside and I am going to play God of War III for a while.  I need to work out my anger…]

[Okay, I’m back.]

Anyway, he goes on telling of all the different ways he plans to screw the people doing the most with their money and then we get this:

In the coming years, if the recovery speeds up and our economy grows faster than our current projections, we can make even greater progress than I have pledged here.

Yeah, you know because you have done so well in your projections so far…

And notice he pretends to get it.  The best way to combat the debt is to improve the economy.  But then again, all those paragraphs before it show that he has no idea how to do it, robbing from the productive and giving to the slovenly.

But just to hold Washington – and me – accountable and make sure that the debt burden continues to decline, my plan includes a debt failsafe.  If, by 2014, our debt is not projected to fall as a share of the economy – or if Congress has failed to act – my plan will require us to come together and make up the additional savings with more spending cuts and more spending reductions in the tax code.  That should be an incentive for us to act boldly now, instead of kicking our problems further down the road.

If the debt failsafe is such a good idea, why is it only the backup plan?

So this is our vision for America – a vision where we live within our means while still investing in our future; where everyone makes sacrifices but no one bears all the burden;

“I mean besides the rich.  Seriously, fuck them…”

Some will argue we shouldn’t even consider raising taxes, even if only on the wealthiest Americans.  It’s just an article of faith for them.

No, it’s a matter of common sense and data, Mr. President.  Because I will remind you that your approach is a failure. Even the New York Times admitted that, before they scrubbed it.

I say that at a time when the tax burden on the wealthy is at its lowest level in half a century, the most fortunate among us can afford to pay a little more.

And notice that phrase, most fortunate.  In his mind, people aren’t wealthy because they worked hard and made good use of their money, their talent and their labor.  No, they are just lucky.  So, seriously, fuck them.

Not if we have to pay for it by making seniors pay more for Medicare.  Or by cutting kids from Head Start.  Or by taking away college scholarships that I wouldn’t be here without.

So if it was not for government largesse you would not have become president, thus exceeding the Peter Principle more than any person in human history?  And you consider that an argument in favor of those scholarships?

And I believe that most wealthy Americans would agree with me.  They want to give back to the country that’s done so much for them.  Washington just hasn’t asked them to.

Are you kidding me?  If the rich want to donate to reduce the debt, or to the U.S. Treasury generally they can.  They have been asked.  What you want to do is coerce them.

Others will say that we shouldn’t even talk about cutting spending until the economy is fully recovered.

To the extent that when he says “spending” he means actual spending and not a tax cut, those who don’t want us to cut spending now, in truth never want us to cut spending.

Oh, and by “cutting spending” he really means tax cuts:

I’m sympathetic to this view, which is one of the reasons I supported the payroll tax cuts we passed in December.

He goes on:

But doing nothing on the deficit is just not an option.  Our debt has grown so large that we could do real damage to the economy if we don’t begin a process now to get our fiscal house in order.

Which is mainly Obama’s fault.

Finally, there are those who believe we shouldn’t make any reforms to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security out of a fear that any talk of change to these programs will usher in the sort of radical steps that House Republicans have proposed.  I understand these fears.  But I guarantee that if we don’t make any changes at all, we won’t be able to keep our commitments to a retiring generation that will live longer and face higher health care costs than those who came before.

Indeed, to those in my own party, I say that if we truly believe in a progressive vision of our society, we have the obligation to prove that we can afford our commitments

The commitment being, of course, to death panels.

But I also know that we’ve come together and met big challenges before.  Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill came together to save Social Security for future generations.  The first President Bush and a Democratic Congress came together to reduce the deficit.  President Clinton and a Republican Congress battled each other ferociously and still found a way to balance the budget.  In the last few months, both parties have come together to pass historic tax relief and spending cuts.  And I know there are Republicans and Democrats in Congress who want to see a balanced approach to deficit reduction.

Noticeably absent is any praise for his predecessor.

And then after a lot of flowery language about meeting in the middle, about working together, he explains that if you don’t like the entitlement state, well, you just hate America.  Yes, really.

But no matter what we argue or where we stand, we’ve always held certain beliefs as Americans.  We believe that in order to preserve our own freedoms and pursue our own happiness, we can’t just think about ourselves.  We have to think about the country that made those liberties possible.  We have to think about our fellow citizens with whom we share a community.  And we have to think about what’s required to preserve the American Dream for future generations.

This sense of responsibility – to each other and to our country – this isn’t a partisan feeling.  It isn’t a Democratic or Republican idea.  It’s patriotism.

Got that?  If you think Social Security is a boondoggle we never should have started and should end asap, you’re a Benedict Arnold.  I am surprised he didn’t work in a War on Terror angle into it.

And then he closes by pretending to appeal to bipartisanship, again.

Oh and if you still have any confidence that Obama will actually reduce the deficit (let alone the debt), watch this:

So the basic takeaway is that he doesn’t plan to deal with this issue.  What he plans to do is demonize the other side for seriously trying to confront the issue, and pretending we are not in the serious trouble we are in.  We will not get this debt under control so long as he is president.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]