Barack Obama’s extravagant Ancien Régime tells the American people: let them eat taxes

By Nile Gardiner
World Last updated: July 15th, 2011
153 Comments

The audacity of Barack Obama’s press conference this morning on the budget talks was simply breathtaking. There is something monumentally surreal about the head in the sand approach being taken towards the debt crisis by the gilded elites in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In fact the president and his advisers are giving every impression that they sit atop an out of touch, decaying Ancien Régime, oozing elitist contempt for public opinion and the views of ordinary American people. President Obama has never appeared more distant from the US electorate than he has today, which is probably why just 16 percent of Americans are satisfied with the direction their country is taking, according to Gallup.

The president made the astonishing claim today that a staggering 80 percent of Americans want tax increases as part of any approach dealing with the debt ceiling issue, declaring: “The American people are sold. The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically.â€