Notes from Norm, Tuesday July 19th: Big Bold Idea

President Obama has made his position clear: he’s against any constitutional changes to the budget process.

"All of us believe that we need to get to a point where eventually we can balance the budget," Obama said Friday during a press briefing at the White House.

"We don’t need a constitutional amendment to do that; what we need to do is to do our jobs."

--The Hill, 7/17/11

As America wakes to another day of near gridlock in Washington, D.C. over the budget impasse regarding what fiscal discipline is required if we are to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, we are being treated to another lecture from the Professor in Chief in the White House.

What’s worse is that as he rejects the Republican House so-called “Cut, Cap and Balance” plan, he still clings to the notion that a nearly dead economic recovery can absorb a crippling tax hike.

As reported in the Hill today, the GOP balanced-budget proposal being considered as a part of “Cut, Cap and Balance” would require Congress to pass a balanced budget each year – put a cap on federal spending at 18 percent of the GDP and require a two-thirds majority of Congress to increase taxes, as well as a three-fifths vote to hike the debt limit.

But, the President – who stood before the American people and said “If not now, when?” when it came to acting on the budget and the debt ceiling now says “…we need to get to a point where eventually we can balance the budget…”

Mr. President, if not now – when?

The President then says America doesn’t need a constitutional amendment to balance our nation’s budget – that all “we” need is to do “our” jobs.

That’s interesting given that the same President said "nothing can be off-limits" when it comes to addressing the nation’s ugly budget crisis.

It may well be that doing his job is exactly what got us to the point we are today.  Perhaps the problem isn’t doing his job – but how he is doing his job.

With ObamaCare, the economy has been saddled with a brutal trillion-dolllar budget buster that is killing jobs.

The President and his allies refuse to accept that new taxes in a disintegrating economy will expand the class of unemployed in America – a number that reaches beyond 14 million – at 9.2% of the population.

The Obama Administration has over-regulated business, and attacked job creators and all the while, pointed fingers at everyone else and tells them to do their jobs.

Something tells me that 14 million Americans wish the politicians in Washington would do their jobs – so they can get back to having one of their own!

I would say to the President that it’s time to have faith in those very Americans that he reached out to in his campaign for President – the people who believed that the “audacity of hope” meant entrusting to them – not to the government – the destiny of America.

To be honest, as a former United States Senator and Mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, I have always been an optimist.  To me, if you can find people who can work together, with common ground, there’s nothing that can’t be accomplished.

However, at some point, even the best intentioned elected official cannot do what cannot be done if there are not enough other people willing to make it happen.

The President is mistaken if he thinks that we don’t need a “…constitutional amendment to do that…” as it relates to balancing our nation’s budget and that “… what we need to do is to do our jobs" is the solution to the budget impasse that threatens to further damage our anemic economy.

Mr. President, after more than two years in office it is time to recognize that the job isn’t getting done.  Look across America and see what the job you have been doing has been doing to everyone else’s job in America.  

In July of 2009, President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress.  In his speech, he called for "bold action and big ideas" to address the nation’s ailing economy. 

In July of 2009, the unemployment rate was 9.5%  -- now, two years later, that bold action and big ideas and trillions of dollars later, the unemployment rate is 9.2%. 

Mr. President, it’s time for “bold action and big ideas”

Be bold, and embrace the big idea of giving the American people the power and the tools to do their jobs -- as Americans -- and pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Mr President, if not now when- if not you, who?

Now is the time for bold leadership to stop the debt death spiral and restore faith in the American economy and our future.