Foo.c points to this Washington Post article on Obama’s tax pledges:
President Barack Obama promised to fix health care and trim the federal budget deficit, all without raising taxes on anyone but the wealthiest Americans. It’s a promise he’s already broken and will likely have to break again.
The article contains all sorts of money gems on how to pay for the healthcare proposals:
Yesterday I mentioned Colin Powell having buyer’s remose over Obama.
Now Ted Rall expresses his. (h/t RobertaX)
He [Bush] was the worst president the U.S. had ever had. Until this one.
On major issues and a lot of minor ones, Obama is the same as or worse than Bush. But Bush had an opposition to contend with. Obama has a compliant Democratic Congress. Lulled to somnolent apathy by Obama’s charming manners, mastery of English (and yes, the color of his skin), leftist activists and journalists have been reduced to quiet disappointment, mild grumbling and unaccountable patience.
I don’t care about window dressing. Sure, it’s nice that Obama is intelligent. But policies matter–not charm. And Obama’s policies are at least as bad as Bush’s.
Some numbers:
Bush was the biggest spender in history, running up a $1.8 trillion deficit with wasteful wars and tax cuts. But next to Obama, Bush was a tightwad. Glamour Prez hasn’t been around six months, yet the Congressional Budget Office reports that he already has quadrupled the deficit by an extra $8.1 trillion. “The total debt held by the public [will] rise from 57 percent of GDP in 2009 to 82 percent (!) of GDP in 2019,” reports U.S. News & World Report.
Obama is sinking us into financial oblivion 72 times faster than Bush.
Where’d the money go? Mostly to insurance companies. Banks. Brokerage firms. Who used it to redecorate their offices and give themselves raises.
Against logic and history Obama claimed his bailout package would create jobs. Instead, unemployment has risen by 1.3 million. Has Obama’s plan saved a single homeowner from foreclosure? Reporters can’t find any.
Some snark:
I liked Bush better. He wasted our money when the economy wasn’t quite as sucky. And he didn’t insult us by pretending to care. Come on, Barack, smirk! Truth in advertising!
Some admission:
Obama has done more damage than Bush. And no one’s stopping him. Which makes him worse.
Sorry, Mr. Bush. If I’d known what was coming, I would’ve been nicer.
The sad thing is, if during the election folks just looked at Obama’s track record (you know, his actions while he was in the US and Illinois Senates, not all of his charismatic election-time talk), you would have been able to see this coming.
Colin Powell expresses his concern over the current adminstration:
“I’m concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them,” Mr. Powell said in an excerpt of an interview with CNN’s John King, released by the network Friday morning.
[…]
But, he said, “one of the cautions that has to be given to the president — and I’ve talked to some of his people about this — is that you can’t have so many things on the table that you can’t absorb it all.”
“And we can’t pay for it all,” said Mr. Powell….
Remember that segment in Eddie Murphy’s Raw where he talked about crackers? Back before November 2008, Obama was a Ritz cracker. Now people are discovering he’s just a Saltine. 🙂
A few choice quotes:
He hates the communists. “Communism makes people lazy. Yah!”
And this is most telling:
“Joe”, he said, “People complain about how unequal things are with the rich executives in a capitalist society. But it’s just the same under communism–it’s the politically connected that have the money and the people that aren’t connected don’t have anything. I know. I lived it. Communism, it’s very bad.”
Howard Nemerov was invited to speak at a local “tea party” with mixed reception.
From what I know of Howard, he isn’t what the organizers wanted… he’s pretty sick of it all:
Why should people believe a “conservative” will be any better than a “liberal” when a self-proclaimed conservative ran up the deficit during his time as president? It was the Republicans during the 2000-2004 time period that prepared the way for Obamanomics. They justified expanding government and federal spending, because it was for the “right” reasons. Now, they sit mute while the new administration makes their efforts look sophomoric, because they know that speaking up too loud risks drawing attention to their hypocrisy.
They know that the American electorate has demonstrated a resistance to learning the lessons of history. As “progressive” economist John Kenneth Galbraith observed:
Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
[…]
We no longer have a two party system: We have the Democrat party, and the Democrat-too party, neither of which adheres to the goals stated on their party websites.
We’ve got mere weeks before Congress returns from their summer holiday–more travel expenses paid by us–and takes up issues like Cap & Trade and socialized medicine. If you have any ideas on how to refocus this movement on We the People, please send them along.
I’m starting to think that the better strategy now will be to vote for whomever has the best chance of unseating the incumbent.
Given my recent postings on the heathcare topic and the ensuing discussion, foo.c posts a video from CATO on the matter that punches holes in the President’s plan.
…it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the power of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and the Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Read the rest of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. Remember why this country was founded.
See how well “free” healthcare works for Canada?
A past company I worked for, the office/project I worked on was out of Ontario. One of the first things I asked my co-workers about on my first visit was about the health care. They weren’t excited about it, but felt it mostly kept them alive. One co-worker told me how her grandmother had to spend 3 days on a gurney in the hallway of a hospital because all the rooms were full.
Yeah… that’s just how I want my grandmother to be cared for. And my mother. And my wife. And my children. And myself.
But hey, it’s “free” right?
You get what you pay for.
George Newman in the Wall Street Journal today does a good job with some health care reform myths. I especially like this perspective on a “public” plan:
“We need a public plan to keep the private plans honest.”
But then why stop there? Eating is even more important than health care, so shouldn’t we have government-run supermarkets “to keep the private ones honest”? After all, supermarkets clearly put profits ahead of feeding people. And we can’t run around naked, so we should have government-run clothing stores to keep the private ones honest. And shelter is just as important, so we should start public housing to keep private builders honest. Oops, we already have that. And that is exactly the point. Think of everything you know about public housing, the image the term conjures up in your mind. If you like public housing you will love public health care.
Give the Newman piece a read. It does quite well at gutting the arguments for the proposed health care reforms.
Some people have a “quote of the day”. I saw this in someone’s signature and realized it’s a good anti-quote, because no you never hear it:
You never hear in the news, “200 killed today when Atheist rebels took heavy shelling from the Agnostic stronghold in the North.”
Stuff From Hsoi 