COMMENTARY: Barack Obama Can Be Described as "The Prodigal President"

The top Southern Baptist policy official this month criticized President Barack Obama for living like a "playboy."

Richard Land, who heads the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, leveled the attack against Obama during a broadcast of his radio program, "Richard Land Live."

Land used the playboy epithet to describe Obama because, he said, Obama's White House is more expensive than that of any other president. Moreover, Land said that Obama's wife's White House staff has been increased tenfold, meaning she has ten times as many people working for her than any other first lady in history.

While I would not call President Obama a playboy -- the term has too much of a sexual connotation for describing him -- I would call him "the prodigal president," because of his extravagant waste of taxpayers' money.

This extravagant use of taxpayers' money dates back to Obama's first months as president, when he gave away billions of taxpayers' dollars in an effort to stimulate the economy. Needless to say, the American economy has become worse -- not better -- since Obama has been president.

Although he had promised during his presidential campaign to create two or three million jobs -- in order to counter the recession -- the fact is that more people are unemployed in the United States today than when Obama became president.

Many Americans believe that his extravagant spending of taxpayer dollars -- Obama has already spent more money than any other president in American history -- will result in an unfortunate life for our children and grandchildren, because they will have to pay trillions of dollars in taxes to balance a huge national debt.

The fact is that President Obama now needs to "come home" to the American taxpayer, by reversing his prodigal spending to a spending that is lean and thrifty.

Just as the Prodigal Son came back to his father after he had recklessly spent all the money his father had given him, "the Prodigal President" needs to recognize that his reckless spending of federal dollars borders on being sinful, and he must now spend taxpayers' money more prudently, responsibly, and sparingly.