There are plenty of conservatives and Republicans out this week, mocking the president's April Fool's Day announcement that this month will be National Financial Capability Month. It does seem the height of hypocrisy, or, on a more generous view, remarkably tone-deaf, for him to be already more than a month late with his own official national budget, and still no sign of completion, and for his party to have produced NOTHING budgetary in four years and change.
But, since he has a staff who are supposed to produce his administration's budget, he can continue to point fingers of blame in any direction he pleases, and, sadly, the majority of the press will carry water for him, there. "It's not his fault. If it hadn't been for those pesky kids and their dog…"
Sure, it's lazy and hypocritical, but he's a politician. What did you expect?
Still, if Obama really wanted America to become more fiscally literate and financially "capable", he might first stand up and admit he, himself, could have used some help with this from an early date.
After all, both he and Michelle, in the first years of their marriage, instead of doing what most people in the cities do and renting an affordable place and saving up for something better, mortgaged their condo to the hilt, then came back and mortgaged it again. They lived on credit for years, paying for groceries, etc., on speculation (i.e., on plastic, assuming they'd eventually have enough income to pay back their creditors, and have no disasters along the way). Then, when their political career advanced, they moved to an even more expensive house, and put themselves into social/political debt deeper and murkier than their financial responsibilities.
Meanwhile, the Obama family continued to pay for fancy clothes, private schools, and the kind of luxury life-style that people with twice their income find difficult to maintain.
Of course, now that they occupy the residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the First Family still seems to have difficulty living modestly and within the taxpayers' means.
Therefore, were Barack Obama genuine in his desire to see Americans become fiscally "capable", he would announce that he, Michelle, Malia and Sasha were all going to study the same instructional courses the nation offers its honest workers, in order to learn what it is to keep a budget. And they would apply their newly-acquired understanding to, say, their vacation plans, their wardrobes, and such, so that the rest of the people could see. In other words, Mr. Obama would, for once, be a leader.
But I'm not holding my breath for that.
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