Hopefully, this will be my last post on this thread as I'm coming to that Nirvana mindset of "Whatever, nevermind." I agree with most of this, particularly your first sentence. Fair enough, Obama gets criticized for spending that is already mandatory and not of his own making to a large extent. However, after the "fiscal cliff" bill was adopted and the president gave his stump speech, he was clearly alluding to further tax increases via closing loopholes, etc, while referencing more spending in the not-so-veiled language of "investments in various projects."
Clearly, he has no interest in spending cuts, only a further expansion of spending and the entitlement state. If all he cared about was bringing in revenue and doing things in a "balanced" way, he would've accepted closing loopholes and eliminating exemptions from the jump. But he insisted upon a tax increase and put no real, tangible spending cuts on the table. That is who he is.
His own fiscal commission basically condemned his actions with their statement, which, primarily focuses on spending reduction, tax reform, and entitlement reform, none of which was broached as part of this bill. Simpson-Bowles even talked about pro-growth fiscal reform. So, even as I agree that your average American wants to have his/her cake and eat it too, I don't agree that we need to raise taxes further. I think we now need to focus on fundamental fiscal and entitlement reform.
But I don't see it happening with this, as you put it, placeholder president. And things will probably get messy just in time for the next president to take office. So, now we have the upcoming debt ceiling negotiation. I'm sure more "revenue" will dominate the dialogue and anything else will be a "non-starter." Perhaps Obama and Reid should listen to his own appointed fiscal commission, though it seems to me that the appointment of the commission itself was merely for political theatre:
"The deal approved today is truly a missed opportunity to do something big to reduce our long term fiscal problems, but it is a small step forward in our efforts to reduce the federal deficit. It follows on the $1 trillion reduction in spending that was done in last year’s Budget Control Act. While both steps advance the efforts to put our fiscal house in order, neither one nor the combination of the two come close to solving our Nation's debt and deficit problems. Our leaders must now have the courage to reform our tax code and entitlement programs such that we stabilize our debt and put it on a downward path as a percent of the economy.
Washington missed this magic moment to do something big to reduce the deficit, reform our tax code, and fix our entitlement programs. We have all known for over a year that this fiscal cliff was coming. In fact Washington politicians set it up to force themselves to seriously deal with our Nation’s long term fiscal problems. Yet even after taking the Country to the brink of economic disaster, Washington still could not forge a common sense bipartisan consensus on a plan that stabilizes the debt.
It is now more critical than ever that policymakers return to negotiations that will build on the terms of this agreement and the spending cuts in the Budget Control Act. These future negotiations will need to make the far more difficult reforms that bring spending further under control, make our entitlement programs sustainable and solvent, and reform our tax code to both promote growth and produce revenue. We take some encouragement from the statements by the President and leaders in Congress that they recognize more work needs to be done. In order to reach an agreement, it will be absolutely necessary for both sides to move beyond their comfort zone and reach a principled agreement on a comprehensive plan which puts the debt on a clear downward path relative to the economy.”
It's a shame we can't just go back to the transactions taxes that preceded the codified 1913 system that politicians and lobbyists have abused and manipulated basically since it was implemented but particularly in the last few decades.