I’d like to address two items in this week’s blog. First, back in May the Obama Administration’s economic experts forecast that over the next ten years, deficit spending would be a historic high of $7 trillion. There was a firestorm of criticism, for good reason, because the higher the deficit, the higher the taxes we’ll have to pay and the lower our standard of living.
It turns out the Obama folks had not been gloomy enough. They now have revised the already historic number up to $9 trillion. When this new debt is added to the $11.5 trillion existing debt, we’ll be looking upwards of a $20 trillion debt! Any thinking person realizes that this is just unsustainable; we’re drowning in red ink. Tax-and-spend patients have taken over the asylum.
Interestingly, the Obama Administration tried to divert attention from this terrible economic news by virtually at the same time announcing that Ben Bernanke would be nominated for a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. And to some degree, they were successful in getting the mainstream press to play up the Bernanke story, and not give nearly the coverage it deserved to the exploding deficit story.
The second item I’ll address is the announcement that Attorney General Eric Holder is opening an investigation to prosecute American CIA interrogators who questioned al Qaeda terrorists and other detainees. This is a total reversal by the Obama Administration, as President Obama had previously said he intended to “look forward rather than backward” on this matter, recognizing at the time that to do otherwise would jeopardize American security. The Left then raised a stink and Obama has reverted to his natural liberal instincts (after all, he was the most liberal Senator in the entire U.S. Senate according to National Journal) and has given Holder the green light to prosecute our first line of defense against terrorists. No wonder polling has consistently shown over the years that the public instinctively doesn’t trust Democrats to look out for our national security as much as they trust Republicans.
This political witch hunt will have a chilling effect on those at the CIA who are tasked with collecting information from terrorists in order to protect the American people. We are approaching a time where CIA might as well stand for Can’t Interrogate Anyone.
