No, really, he said this:

“One of the measures of irresponsibility that we’ve seen is the enormous federal debt that has accumulated, a number that has doubled in recent years. As we just discussed, my budget team filled me in on – Peter Orszag now forecasts that, at the current course and speed, a trillion-dollar deficit will be here before we even start the next budget, that we’ve already looked – we’re already looking at a trillion-dollar budget deficit or close to a trillion-dollar budget deficit, and that potentially we’ve got trillion-dollar deficits for years to come, even with the economic recovery that we are working on at this point.

So the reason I raise this is that we’re going to have to stop talking about budget reform. We’re going to have to totally embrace it. It’s an absolute necessity.

And it has to begin with the economic recovery and reinvestment plan that Congress will soon be considering, that we’re going to be investing an extraordinary amount of money to jump-start our economy, save or create 3 million new jobs, mostly in the private sector, and lay a solid foundation for future growth.

But we’re not going to be able to expect the American people to support this critical effort unless we take extraordinary steps to ensure that the investments are made wisely and managed well. And that’s why my recovery and reinvestment plan will have – will set a new higher standard of accountability, transparency, and oversight.

We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by which individual members insert pet projects without review. We will create an economic recovery oversight board made up of key administration officials and independent advisers to identify problems early and make sure we’re doing all that we can to solve it. We will put information about where money is being spent online so that the American people know exactly where their precious tax dollars are going and whether we are hitting our marks.

But we’re not going to be able to stop there. We’re going to have to bring significant reform not just to our recovery and reinvestment plan, but to the overall budget process, to address both the deficit of dollars and the deficit of trust. We’ll have to make tough choices, and we’re going to have to break old habits. We’re going to have to eliminate outmoded programs and make the ones that we do need work better.

That’s the challenge that I’ve handed to Peter, and Rob Nabors, and the rest of my budget team. That’s the challenge that the American people have handed me. They know that we’re at a perilous crossroad and that tinkering in the margins will not do.”

“Tinkering in the Margins”.

Remember when Democrats bitched up and down about deficits all while Bush was in office? Well that was then and this now. But even now it’s all bathtub water anyway, because the only way Obama and his crew can make “tough choices” that reduce the deficit is by cutting or eliminating money from the two sacred cows of Social Security and Medicare – which consistently exceed tax revenues year after year. In fact $40 trillion over the next 75 years.

So since they’re not “going there”, here is where Obama is going. Right where we told you all along. To your wallet. Now you know why Biden was talking about how paying taxes was a “patriotic” act. There is NO WAY that Obama balances a budget without substantially raising taxes, and it’s not only going to be those who make $250,000. Despite his talk of tax cuts for the middle class, they will have to go up across the board – from the $42,000 a year and up.

Right now he’s just setting up for the kill.

“Tinkering in the Margins” indeed.

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