Obama’s 3trillion budget does nothing to stimulate our economy…in fact, it weakens our military defense making us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks… This is not fear mongering.  This opens wide opportunities for America’s enemies to strike and we can’t do anything about it.

Below is an excerpt from a top economic advisor…

Adrian Van Eck’s Hotline on Money and the Economy
For: Saturday, February 28, 2009It is breathtaking in the way (Obama) plans to use the
budget to completely remake American society.  It sets out to crush
the Ronald Reagan goal of a smaller and less intrusive Federal
Government.  In its place Obama would insert his own vision of an
America with a much bigger and far more intrusive Federal Government.

The budget plan is so massive and so all-encompassing that if he
succeeds in getting it through a submissive Democratically-controlled
Congress I believe historians will instantly declare that it must be
ranked up there in the pantheon of American politics with the New Deal
of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1932-1941 pre-war) and the Great Society
launched by Lyndon Baines Johnson (1963-1968).

I was particularly interested in the contrast with the Reagan program.
In 1982 America was mired in a recession that in many ways and many
places was the equal to that which has fallen on us today.  The media
seems to feel they must block out memories of 1982 from anything that
is said on radio and TV or discussed in various print media.  I do not
think they will succeed.  1982 is too close in time and too many of us
lived through the Reagan years and know them well.  We saw how his
building of warplanes and warships helped to create millions of jobs
from California to Massachusetts and then busted the Soviet Union when
they tried to match us.  (From a deep recession Reagan kicked the GDP
growth rate up to 8.4% in just two years.)  If we were talking about
an earlier period, say 1924 and the way Calvin Coolidge responded to
Billy Mitchell’s sinking of an old battleship by aerial bombing and
ordered the construction of aircraft carriers that would later bring
us victory in World War II.  Few who were alive then and still are now
were old enough in 1924 to be aware of the decisive Coolidge action
when it happened.

There will be no jobs created in the Obama program by building
warplanes and warships.  That is a shame, really.  Not just for the
jobs.  The Navy is building two stealth destroyers that are a wonder
to behold.  Not only are they invisible to enemy radar but they are so
loaded with modern high-tech systems that they are a third bigger than
traditional destroyers.  Yet they have only half the crew size as
today’s destroyers.  That means we could place twice as many ships in
key places around the world with the same number of officers and
sailors.  Think of the savings this will bring in salaries today and
retirement benefits for years to come.  But no matter.  This destroyer
is doomed.  And so is the F22 warplane.  It is so advanced over
anything in the air today that when the first squadron was activated
Russian bombers that had been routinely crossing the border and over
flying Alaska, as if they thought they would someday, somehow regain
this former Russian possession, turned around and fled back to Russia
with their throttles wide open.

The current Defense Secretary got President George W. Bush to continue
the assembly line into 2009 to give the new president a chance to
order 200 more of the plane, the F22, as the Air Force has requested.
That man, Robert Gates, says he is waiting for Obama to review defense
procurement to see if the F22 will survive.  I say he is wasting his
time.  His heart will be broken when the decision is announced,
because it has already been made and is being kept under wraps.  I can
prove that.  Listen to this note from Robert Maginnis, as it was
reproduced in Newt Gingrich’s weekly email:

“Barack Obama promised during his election campaign to slash defense
spending in a way that is both breathtakingly naïve and incredibly
dangerous to our national security.  He taped ads outlining his intent
to slash defense spending.  He said –‘I will cut investments in
unproven missile defense systems.  I will not weaponize space.  I will
slow our development of future combat systems.’  He also called for a
15% cut in Pentagon spending deferring those funds instead to ‘more
education, healthcare, alternative energy development, world hunger
(and) deficit reduction.’

“Recently Vice President Joe Biden outlined specific programs for the
budget axe.  He said:  ‘I’ll tell you what we cannot afford… a
trillion dollar commitment to ‘Star Wars,’ new nuclear weapons, a
thousand ship Navy and the F-22 Raptor.’  Capitol Hill Democrats
promise to help chip away at Pentagon spending as well.  Rep. Barney
Frank (Dem-Mass.) has called for a 25% cut in military spending, which
he said will force the Pentagon to reprioritize its weapons
procurement.  Frank says:  ‘We don’t need all these fancy weapons.’
Slashing military capabilities in war is incredibly naïve.  Russia is
reclaiming its former militaristic capabilities.  China has
demonstrated robust offensive capabilities.  Our combat systems are
becoming ancient and spending on maintenance is up 80% in a decade.
Our Air Force is flying an aging fleet.  Last year all the F-16’s –
our mainstay fighter – were grounded after one fell apart in mid-air.
Our forces desperately need to be recapitalized and modernized to keep
up with threats.  Biden showed his naiveté when he suggested we have
or want a 1000-ship navy.  Actually the Navy has 282 ships and the
Obama budget will shrink it.”

There is more to be concerned with in this budget.  For example, the
Medicare plan is aimed at hospitals, health insurance companies and
drug manufacturers.  It calls for Medicare to scale back more of its
already too-small payments to private insurance plans that serve older
Americans.  Also Medicare would charge upper-income beneficiaries a
higher premium for Medicare’s prescription drug coverage.  Unlike the
Reagan budgets, which directed public money to private companies, the
Obama budget will swell up Federal payrolls and will spread Government
money around to 50 States like horse manure on a farm, thus allowing
them to keep many thousands of State workers on State payrolls… at a
time when private businesses of all sizes are trimming staff to match
revenues and expenses.  It appears that the so-called stimulus bill
spending on state, local and federal payrolls will be continued and
even expanded in this Obama budget.

I had a conversation last night with David Jennett, publisher of the
Money-Forecast Letter.  He told me that their phone is ringing almost
non-stop with calls from readers who wanted to share their negative
view of the new budget.  He said that the word “communist” seems to
come up in almost half the calls.  I told him I did not think it rose
(or fell) to the level of communist but I could sympathize with anyone
who wanted to label it socialist.  Dave said he could not agree even
with that designation, because under socialism the government takes
over the means of production, as it seems to be doing on a creeping
basis with the 20 biggest banks in America (out of several thousand).
If there was a word for what the budget may be trending toward, David
suggested, it would be fascism… the system created by Benito Mussolini
in the early 1920’s.  That system was marked by continued private
ownership of factories and farms.  But taxes took away a large portion
of what the owners earned.  Personal liberties were curtailed.

The Press was controlled – and that reminds us of today’s
Congressional moves to weaken talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh.
Since almost no one today is aware of what fascism was like, I told
Dave we should forget about using that word in the Money-Forecast
Letter.  People would think we were being unfair to those in the
Administration who are simply putting forward exactly what they
promised in the campaign they intended to do.  Not only that, the
president is doing what he has become famous for.  Remember, he was
cautioned by several party leaders not to even try for the presidency
in 2008…. but to wait four or eight years.  Instead he charged
forward.  That is his style.  He reminds me of the quote Gen. George
Patton, hero of World War II in Europe, used frequently before he led
his men into battle:  “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace!”
(Boldness.  Boldness.  Always boldness! - or you can use the word
audacious if you like).  Unless some equally bold leader steps forward
to oppose the Obama budget, I suggest he has a good chance of getting
most of his program into place well before most of the nation has even
a clue what he has set out to do… namely remake American society in
ways that are far removed from anything envisioned by the Founding
Fathers or generations who have come before us.    Adrian Van Eck.