He Never Promised Us a Rose Garden

Has anyone read President Obama's Tuesday morning Rose Garden remarks to commemorate the first meeting of his new "Fiscal Commission" (hereinafter to be referred to as the "Tax Hike Commission,") chaired by those two well-known Austrian economists and experts at slashing government regulations to facilitate the growth of employment in private, for-profit businesses, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson?

And here you thought "Alice in Wonderland" was a tad hallucinogenic.

Mr. Obama et al. spent a trillion dollars (so far) to block the natural recovery (which they COULD have facilitated, a bit, by slashing government borrowing, spending and regulation, allowing wages and prices to FALL.) They thus helped turn the 2008 recession into something more closely resembling a great depression. Yet today Mr. Obama blithely informs his Rose Graden audience that he had to run up those deficits "to prevent the recession from becoming another depression."

By diverting billions of tax dollars to existing government bureaucracies and federal contractors, you understand.

Talked to anyone considering opening a little hand-made toy store, lately? New federal regulations require you to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to certify each model of toy is lead-free. What if your in-house Gepetto only plans to carve 20? Let's see, we just pass along that laboratory certification cost by adding $10,000 to the price of each unit. ...

Hoping to open a small bakery? Did you realize those delicious armoas you used to enjoy when you walked by a bakery are now regulated by the EPA as toxic gases? Any idea what capturing those gases will now cost a little mom-and-pop bake shop?

The federals will hire tens of thousands of new bureaucrats to enforce their mandatory rationed health care scheme, yet Mr. Obama says with a straight face in the Rose Garden today, "I kept my promise to pass a health reform bill without adding a dime to the deficit."

But what I love most of all is: "We’ll continue to do what it takes to spur job creation while investing in a new foundation for lasting economic growth," while "My budget ends loopholes and tax giveaways for" (in other words, raises the taxes of) "oil and gas companies and for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans" — who already pay, what, 20 to 30 percent of all income taxes, and without whose enthusiastic investment in this country, there won't BE any new job creation?

Don't slam the door on your way out, Mr. Wynn.

Why, Mr. Obama even calls for "a freeze in government spending for three years." Of course, he means the kind of "freeze" that "won’t affect benefits through Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. And it will not affect national security, including benefits for veterans."

Oh, THAT kind of "freeze."

I hope Alice in Obamaland doesn't make the red queen TOO angry. Though I suppose once they drive out the "greedy oil and gas companies" — like the one that made Al Gore's family rich — we can all go back to heating our home with buffalo chips.

I don't know whether Barack Obama would agree with me that America is a great nation. I'm pretty sure, however, that if he DOES believe America is a great nation, his goal is to leave it less wealthy, less free, and less great — and (given the administration's vow today to stop Arizona cops from checking the "immigration status" of criminals they arrest) aswarm with illegal aliens who neither share nor understand our principles of limited government.

Should that concern us?