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The Obama Timeline

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Harconen
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« Reply #180 on: July 29, 2009, 03:55:17 pm »

“Nothing is My Fault”

 

At a town hall meeting in Arnold, Missouri on April 29, an overly defensive Obama ridicules the tax protestors who demonstrated on April 15. Obama says, “Those of you who are watching certain news channels (Fox News) on which I’m not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security.” (To shift blame from his deficit spending, Obama slyly moves the issue to health care costs and Social Security—neither of which were the focus of the tax protests.) He then incorrectly argues, “But let’s not play games and pretend that the reason (for the deficit) is because of the Recovery Act.” (Federal borrowing is in fact financing Obama’s $787 billion stimulus legislation.) In answer to a deficit question Obama gives his usual “It’s not my fault” excuse, saying, “Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit… That wasn’t me.” Obama’s childish defense is unacceptable; he was a member of the Democrat-controlled Senate, which, along with the Democrat-controlled House, was fully responsible for the last two federal budgets. Further, Obama voted for the emergency bailout legislation in late 2008 that helped create the current deficit. Obama also continues to claim that his massive deficit spending is simply an “investment” that will pay off in the end, and brags that he will cut the deficit in half by the completion of his first term. (Even if he does that, it will not be much of an accomplishment because he would have first tripled or quadrupled it before cutting it in half. That’s the equivalent of someone having a $100 telephone bill he can’t afford to pay, increasing it to $400, and then bragging that he plans to “cut it in half” to $200.) Obama argues that his health care plan will cover more Americans but will help pay for itself through cost-cutting measures. His claim is ludicrous, and he will be able to get substantial savings only by reducing levels of health care for millions through rationing of services and by forced cuts in service fees that will lead to hospital and doctor shortages. Obama says he can “save Social Security” simply by raising the payroll tax cap; that alone will be insufficient to make the system solvent (and would mean increasing taxes on many people who earn less than $250,000 per year). Obama claims that his stimulus bill “has already created or saved over 150,000 jobs,” but unemployment rates have continued to rise. (More than 1.3 million jobs were lost in February and March. Approximately 539,000 were lost in April, and the month ended with a national unemployment rate of about 8.9 per cent, the worst in 26 years. The Obama administration had warned that the unemployment rate would reach 8.8 per cent if his stimulus bill did not pass; it has exceeded that level even though his legislation did pass) Finally, of course, Obama gives himself credit for bi-partisanship—when he and his party have been anything but cooperative with Republicans. [2579, 2586, 2587, 2632, 2662]

            While Obama holds his town hall meeting hundreds of demonstrators protest outside. The major television networks neglect to report those protests.

            It is reported that the Obama administration is asking Congress to change laws in order to reduce mandatory sentences for the sale of crack ****. Obama called for such changes during the campaign, charging that blacks are unfairly punished by strict sentencing guidelines. (An estimated 82 per cent of crack **** convicts are black; according to some critics that reflects unfair prosecutions based on race. But the higher black conviction rate may simply mean that more blacks than whites are dealing crack ****, which is less expensive but more dangerous than the powdered version.) [2595, 2607]

            The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. economy shrank at an annual rate of 6.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. [2600]

            On April 29, Obama holds a press conference during which he is still in campaign mode, frequently criticizing former President Bush and Republicans in Congress. (Some might argue he is needlessly defensive, considering he won the election and Democrats hold both the House and the Senate. With the Republicans being largely irrelevant, Obama should be able to ignore them and continue pursuing his agenda. His continuing criticism of the opposition party suggests that he wants at least some Republican votes for his leftist legislation to enable him to shift some of the blame to them later if the economy does not improve. Just as likely, it suggests that Obama is tremendously insecure and cannot tolerate criticism of any sort.)

            During the press conference Obama specifically states that “waterboarding is torture,” and says the CIA’s interrogation techniques did not save American lives—despite the fact that they led Khalid Sheik Mohammed to provide information about a planned massive attack on Los Angeles that was subsequently prevented. Although Obama asks a question no one can possibly answer, “Could we have gotten that same information without resorting to those techniques?” the residents of Los Angeles are likely very happy they did not have to put Obama’s hypothetical question to the test. Blaming Bush and the Republicans for the bad economy, Obama says, “even as we clear away the wreckage of this recession, I’ve also said that we can’t go back to an economy that’s built on a pile of sand.” (Obama is in fact continuing and worsening the same reckless policies of deficit spending and massive expansion of government.) When asked about the government takeover of banks and auto companies, Obama remarks, “I don’t want to run auto companies. I don’t want to run banks. I’ve got two wars I’ve got to run already”—which prompts unexplainable laughter from the reporters. Obama makes the claim that his goal is “to get the U.S. government out of the auto business as quickly as possible,” which certainly conflicts with his actions of the last one hundred days, which could have been avoided altogether. His excuse is that the problems of the auto companies are the fault of President Bush (“I would love a nice, lean portfolio to deal with, but that’s not the hand that’s been dealt us”), but their troubles have been brewing for decades. Had the government allowed GM and Chrysler to file bankruptcy in the first place, billions in taxpayer bailout funds would not have been wasted. In response to a question on immigration, Obama gives the expected answer that he would like to see “comprehensive” reform that gives illegal immigrants a “pathway to citizenship.” [2597, 2599]
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