“The Budget Poseur”

“We simply cannot continue to spend as if deficits don’t have consequences,” Obama said in unveiling a budget with a record $1.6 trillion deficit this year that will be the highest as a share of GDP since World War II. He warned against treating taxpayer dollars as “monopoly money,” even as he proposes a budget of $3.8 trillion, and against ignoring the challenge of the debt “for another generation,” even with a $1 trillion deficit projected at the decade’s end.

Translation: The rich cannot possibly be permitted to continue holding their riches when we need the taxes so badly.

His Majesty finds these kinds of debates amusing. He points out that, when it comes time to shear the sheep, there is only so much wool to be gathered no matter how closely you shear. And skinning the sheep only ensures there will be no wool next year.

His Majesty understands sacrificing principle for pragmatism. It’s what politics is all about. Sacrificing pragmatism for principle may occasionally have its place, when the principle is sound. Sacrificing pragmatism for no discernible principle, which he considers the hallmark of the Obama administration, is simply insane.