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March 5, 2010
O's Growing Credibility Deficit
Topics: Political News and commentaries
Jennifer Rubin points to Barack Obama's diminishing reservoir of credibility, completely nails Obama's false claims that Obamacare does not fund abortions, and aptly notes that the longer he talks, the less believable his arguments have become.
After a year, dozens of speeches, hundreds of interviews, and a health-care summit, who believes of ObamaCare that: 1) you will get to keep your health-care plan; 2) it won't add to the deficit; 3) it will cut costs; 4) it won't adversely affect Medicare patients; and 5) it won't affect the status quo on abortion funding? The endless discussions and Obama's obvious discomfort in hearing informed arguments from Republicans at his summit (e.g. John Boehner on abortion and Paul Ryan on the rest) have served to undermine the president's credibility on these points with all but the most devoted spinners.As Rubin goes on to point out, the president's repeated misstatements have rendered him less and less effective as a salesman for his plan, both with the public and key lawmakers. However, the president's "misstatements" extend far beyond the issue of abortion. As John Ellis has noted at FrontPageMag.com, the president has built up an extraordinary record of serial mendacity. Indeed, it is the record of a habitual, shameless liar, a man who will say anything to get what he wants.The abortion issue is particularly revealing. Whether or not one thinks the government should subsidize abortion, Obama's claim that his favored bill (essentially the Senate bill) doesn't subsidize abortions simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life explains:
The president's latest proposal mirrors legislation that has passed the Senate, which doesn't include a Hyde Amendment [prohibiting taxpayer funding of abortions], and would inevitably establish abortion as a fundamental health-care service for the following reasons:The president insists that his bill maintains the status quo on abortion funding, but those most concerned and whose votes are at stake, namely pro-life House Democrats, know better. So when Obama and Nancy Pelosi repeat their assertion that the bill contains no federal funding of abortion, they are being less than truthful.
- It would change existing law by allowing federally subsidized health-care plans to pay for abortions and could require private health-insurance plans to cover abortion.
- It would impose a first-ever abortion tax - separate premium payment that will be used to pay for elective abortions - enrollees in insurance plans that covers abortions through newly created government health-care exchanges.
- And it would fail to protect the rights of health-care providers to refuse to participate in abortions.
The president's plan goes further than the Senate bill on abortion by calling for spending $11 billion over five years on "community health centers," which include Planned Parenthood clinics that provide abortions.
Take for example:
This list is certainly not exhaustive. And as Ellis notes in his piece, the president's record of lies has the nation in a troubling situation - we can't believe a word of what our president says:
- During his campaign for the presidency and since, Obama repeatedly assured us that he would protect Medicare against cuts; but he now presses for passage of bills that include savage cuts in Medicare.
- To obtain passage of his first stimulus bill, Obama assured us that 90% of the jobs created would be in the private sector; but as he well knew, most of them were to be in the public sector.
- Early in the health care debate, Obama assured us that he had not said that he favored a single payer system; but he was on record as having said exactly that (actually on video).
- Obama gave primary voters a firm assurance that if he became the nominee of the Democratic party he would (unlike Hillary Clinton) abide by the campaign finance limits of public funding; but as soon as he became the partyÃÆ'Æ'¢ÃÆ'¢â€Ã...¡Ã‚¬ÃÆ'¢â€Ã...¾Ã‚¢s nominee, he reneged on that pledge.
- During the presidential campaign Obama criticized the presence of former lobbyists in the Bush administration and solemnly assured us that he would appoint no lobbyists to his administration; but once elected he proceeded to appoint even more lobbyists than his predecessors.
- Obama criticized the size of George BushÃÆ'Æ'¢ÃÆ'¢â€Ã...¡Ã‚¬ÃÆ'¢â€Ã...¾Ã‚¢s deficit and promised to stop deficit spending if elected; but he has already quadrupled the size of the deficit he objected to and recklessly continues new federal spending in the trillions.
- When campaigning Obama criticized bills before the congress that were too long for anyone to be able to read and promised to stop that; but the bills he has been backing throughout his first year are infinitely longer (2000+ pages) than the ones he criticized.
- Candidate Obama promised an end to the corruption of earmarks and pork, but in the bills he has supported this year there have been more and bigger earmarks than ever before.
- Candidate Obama promised us that CIA personnel involved in the interrogation of terrorists would not be prosecuted; but his administration is now doing exactly that.
- Candidate Obama promised that he would make sure that there was always enough time for the public to read legislation before it was enacted; but he has done exactly the opposite, repeatedly pressing for even faster passage of even longer bills.
- Candidate Obama met fears that he would be a tax and spend liberal by promising, emphatically and repeatedly, that those earning under $200,000 would see no increase in their taxes of any kind; but he now urges passage of a healthcare bill that breaks that pledge in many different ways, and his unrestrained increase in federal spending makes more tax increases inevitable.
- Candidate Obama promised bipartisanship and an end to partisan bickering; but in a display of especially ruthless partisanship his allies have shut Republicans out of all key meetings on his health care initiative, with the unprecedented result that domestic legislation of historic importance garnered not a single Republican vote in the Senate.
- Candidate Obama criticized his opponent's plan to tax employer paid healthcare benefits, and promised he would not tax them; but the bill he now backs will do just that.
- Obama had promised that he would not sign a healthcare bill that would add one dime to the federal deficit; but the bill he now backs adds trillions in new federal spending, offset only by new sources of revenue that are both uncertain and more properly seen as offsetting the already existing deficit.
- Obama coerced congress into passing his stimulus bill by promising that if it were passed unemployment could go no higher then 8%; but unemployment is now at 10%, and he could not possibly have had good reason to exclude that possibility.
- Obama promised that his cap and trade legislation will create jobs; but its massive tax increases will certainly hobble the economy and destroy jobs, while green jobs in significant numbers can at best be hoped for, but never promised.
- Obama has repeatedly assured the American people that if they like their current health plan they can keep it; but the House bill which he supported created huge incentives for employers to drop their coverage and shift their members to a public option (which he now promises to pursue after the current bill is passed).
- Obama has just as often assured the public that under his health plan everyone will be able to keep their current doctor; but many are certain to lose their doctors when ObamaCare's large cuts in Medicare funding induce more doctors to withdraw from Medicare coverage, as they also would were employers to transfer patients to a public option to save money.
- Obama assured a joint session of Congress that his health plan would not fund illegal aliens; but his allies had been busy voting down amendments to that effect. (This was the point of Joe Wilson's outburst.)
- Obama claimed that Caterpillar's CEO had told him that Caterpillar would begin hiring again as a result of the stimulus bill; but that individual immediately announced that he had said no such thing, and that Caterpillar would in fact be laying off more workers.
- Candidate Obama promised that his administration (unlike his predecessor's) would be so transparent that TV cameras (C-Span) would be there for key deliberations; but an unprecedented level of secrecy prevails as the final stages of Obamacare are negotiated behind closed doors and kept so secret that even the Senate majority whip admitted that he had no idea what was going on. Requests for Obama to honor the promise of C-Span cameras are being ignored.
- Obama claims that he wants a public option only to increase choice and competition; but the House bill would clearly reduce choice both by squeezing unsubsidized private health plans out of the market, and by setting rigid conditions on acceptable plans that would narrow available options.
- Candidate Obama claimed that violent radical Bill Ayers was just another guy in his neighborhood; but the record shows that the two had worked closely together.
- Obama assured us that his health plan would never ration care, or "pull the plug" on grandma; but the legislation he backs sets up panels to make crucial decisions on when to withhold care, and it makes such deep cuts in Medicare that rationing is inevitable.
- Obama now assures us that health insurance premiums will not go up if ObamaCare becomes law, insisting indignantly that people who say this have not read the bill; but the legislation forces insurers to cover preexisting conditions, which will compel them to raise premiums substantially.
President Obama evidently believes that he can solve any problem with a speech. But he really does not care whether what he says is true or not, nor does he feel any responsibility to honor the assurances and promises he makes. As a result, this nation is now in a position where it cannot believe a word that he says, and that amounts to an unprecedented crisis of confidence in the Presidency. Democratic government will atrophy if we allow lying on this scale to count as the business as usual of politics.So, we're left with two important questions: When will the press and the Congress hold him accountable, and how will the American people respond to president's "extraordinary record of serial mendacity" in the November congressional elections?
Posted by Richard at March 5, 2010 10:20 AM
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