Orrin Hatch: “last night we heard from President Obama in a prime-time address from the East Room of the White House. The topic was…”

“last night we heard from President Obama in a prime-time address from the East Room of the White House. The topic was raising the Federal debt limit. According to Treasury Secretary Geithner, the Federal Government may breach the statutory debt limit as early as August 2, 2011. That is 1 week from today. Remarkably, the President, in yet another prime-time address, again hectored the American people about the need for politically charged tax hikes as a cure-all for our deficit and debt problems. We have to hand it to the President; he is a true believer. For the President, there seems to be no problem in Washington that can't be fixed with tax increases. Even his own party has moved beyond him on this. To be certain, Democrats have not become the party of tax relief. For example, the plan offered by the majority leader does not address the 10-year tax increase of $3.5 trillion that is said to kick in on January 1, 2013. But last night on CNN, one reporter got it about right. This is how she put it: ``Nobody is talking about tax increases except Barack Obama.'' For weeks the President and his surrogates on and off Capitol Hill have been talking about tax increases as the solution to our debt crisis, but the President was on his own last night. It was a speech very much divorced from the reality of our situation.…”