Colin Powell Criticizes President Obama, the Big Spender
By Anita Finlay ("Ani") on July 7, 2009 at 4:30 PM in Bank Failure, Bush administration, Bush/Cheney, John McCain, Obama Administration, Obama's Broken Promises, Obama's Budget, Wall Street
CNN’s John King interviewed General Colin Powell Sunday as Powell airs doubts on Obama agenda. Here are some interesting remarks as covered by Jon Ward of The Washington Times:
Colin Powell, one of President Obama’s most prominent Republican supporters, expressed concern Friday that the president’s ambitious blitz of costly initiatives may be enlarging the size of government and the federal debt too much.
“I’m concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them,”
Um, now he’s concerned?
During the campaign, President Obama made a plethora of pie in the sky promises. While he has certainly abandoned the left in cuddling up to President Bush’s lack of transparency, signing statements and the like, he has certainly trumped the Bush Administration in terms of spending ridiculous amounts of money, particularly bailing out Wall Street before Main Street. While Mr. Powell noted that
‘health care reform and many of Mr. Obama’s other initiatives are “important” to Americans…’ “one of the cautions that has to be given to the president — and I’ve talked to some of his people about this — is that you can’t have so many things on the table that you can’t absorb it all.” …”And we can’t pay for it all…”
Mr. Powell’s comments represent the growing concern that began with hard-line fiscal conservatives but is now spreading to moderates about the rate of government spending and debt under President Obama, and the long-term impact on the country’s fiscal sustainability and national security.
The national debt stands currently at $11.5 trillion and the deficit for the current fiscal year is projected to be close to $2 trillion.
Mr. Powell expressed alarm at “budgets that are running into the multi-trillions of dollars” and “a huge, huge national debt that, if we don’t pay for in our lifetime, our kids and grandkids and great-grandchildren will have to pay for it.”
He’s not alone in expressing alarm. I am very curious as to why he is making these statements now…
“So, I think the president, as he moves forward with his initiatives, has to start really taking a very, very hard look at what the cost of all this is. And, how much additional bureaucracy [will] be needed to make all of this happen?” Mr. Powell said.
Mr. Powell also noted that he does “stay in touch” with the Obama Administration, particularly recently.
“The federal government has become too large and too intrusive in our lives,” Mr. Powell said then. “We can no longer afford solutions to our problems that result in more entitlements, higher taxes to pay for them, more bureaucracy to run them, and fewer results to show for it.”
Mr. Powell said that now that he still believes what he said then, but that he would put it in different terms now.
“I don’t like slogans anymore like ‘limited government.’ That’s not the right answer. The right answer is, give me a government that works,” he said. “Keep it as small as possible. Keep the tax burden on the American people as small as possible, but at the same time, have government that is solving the problems of the people.”
Gee, is Mr. Powell planning his own campaign sometime in the future? Sounds like some sound advice and some pretty good campaign slogans to the bargain. It’s too bad he didn’t give President Obama that advice back when he was a candidate last fall.
How odd the Mr. Powell chose to endorse the gentleman anyway without first stopping for a moment to listen to all Obama’s campaign promises and looking carefully at the price tag. As American Girl in Italy noted in her excellent article about President Obama’s reversals on health care, he is now looking at adopting some of the very proposals he vilified Senator McCain for suggesting last year. Guess he’s finally been looking at the price tag, too – and the sticker shock is mighty big indeed.
With all due respect to General Powell, I really find it irritating that he is continually reversing himself in order to rescue his reputation. Perhaps he felt his good name and many honorable years of service were somewhat tarnished by making the case to go to war with Iraq. Who knows if his decision to endorse Mr. Obama was part of a mea culpa in that regard. Now that VP Biden acknowledged that the stimulus is sort of a bust and that their team underestimated our economy’s problems, Colin Powell is distancing himself from the President with these statements?
Gosh, I sure wish he would make up his mind.
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