Obama Promises to Cut the Deficit with More Deficit Spending

Barack Obama did not lose the debates because of thin air. He lost because of thin thinking. Today, he tweeted the following, which is a quote from the stump speech he gives. It’s from his proposed remedies for the ballooning deficit.

President Obama: “Finally, I’ll use the savings from ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to do some nation-building here at home.”

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 25, 2012

The president has described that very spending on those very wars as spending “on a credit card.”

So having stated that the wars have been financed on deficit spending, how then is spending that money on something else not, also, deficit spending? He might answer, because it’s being spent here at home. But the war spending is mostly going to the troops in the field, their support troops, and US companies that manufacture weapons and materials used in the war. Either way, the money is being borrowed and then spent, and then some goes back into the economy.

And either way, it’s either being taxed out of the economy now or being borrowed against the future economy. It’s deficit spending no matter how you go.