The First 100 Days: What Did You Do To Celebrate It?

Me? I was working my butt off at my job. Why? Because in addition to taking care of my wife and 4-month-old son, Obama and the other socialists in Washington have decreed that I also have to work to take care of various Peggy the Moochers out there who think that a life is owed to them and they can just sit back and sponge off of the tax dollars that come from hard working people like me.

But, it is important to look at how the leftists celbrated it and how they twisted the truth for Obama's benifit. Those twists are nothing more than insults to the intelligence of those of us who do our own research and try to verify our information before putting it out there.

Let's look at some of Obama's 100 Days quotes that don't pass the smell test:

We began by passing a recovery act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs and provided a tax cut to 95 percent of all working families.

Well, the unemployement figures show that more jobs are being lost than saved or created. I guess Obama believes that this is somehow a good thing.

As for that tax quote, it has long since been established that 43% of Americans effectively have a tax bill of $0 after their deductions and credits are factored in. That is, they either recoup their entire tax bill or get more money back than they paid in. So, how can you offer a tax break to someone who effectively doesn't even pay taxes?

On bipartisanship:

And if that is how bipartisanship is defined, a situation in which basically, wherever there are philosophical differences, I have to simply go along with ideas that have been rejected by the American people in a historic election, you know, we're probably not going to make progress. If, on the other hand, the definition is that we're open to each other's ideas, there are going to be differences, the majority will probably be determinative when it comes to resolving just hard, core differences that we can't resolve, but there is a whole host of other areas where we can work together, then I think we can make progress.

In that first sentence, Obama is basically saying that it is his way or the highway. But his way is a hell of a lot more radical than he let onto during the campaign.

As for that second paragraph, well, perhaps Obama should have spent a few minutes explaining how locking the Republicans out of various meetings and discussions on the Porkulus/Spendulus package amounted to "bipartisanship."

On the economy:

I didn't anticipate the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

I don't know if Obama is aware of this or not, but we have not reached that point yet. The economic crisis that resulted from Jimmy Carter's disastrous presidency was worse than what we are experiencing now. If the current crisis does reach the proportions of the Great Depression, it will be because of Obama's socialist policies, not because of the previous eight years.

On the Auto industry:

I don't think that we should micromanage ...

Unless you want to push out the CEO of GM, then micomanaging is just fine in his opinion.

And of course, Obama tried to re-write history with some of his comments. Take for example the following:

I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, "We don't torture," when the entire British -- all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat. And then the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking short-cuts, over time, that corrodes what's -- what's best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.

If Obama actually believes this, then he has been drinking the kool-aid of some historical revisionist who outright changed the facts. The British most definitely did use torture techniques, even to the point of drugging prisoners, in order to get information out of Nazi captives during World War II. Why Obama would make such a glaringly false statement, I don't know.

Every single question thrown at Obama was a soft-ball and seemed a part of a love-fest that the media was having at the time. No one asked a serious question or any of the hard questions that the American people want answered.

For example, here is a question that should have been asked: "Mr. President, if the Democrats hold that a $1 trillion deficit is irresponsible, then shouldn't the Democrats consider your budget plan to quadruple the deficit as being five times as irresponsible?"

But then, a media that is so deep in the tank for a socialist president would never have the courage nor the integrity to ask such pertinent questions.

Fact-Checking Obama's Speech: His Words Ring Hollow

A look at a few of Obama's statements from his speech last night. Clearly, as he did with his comments on the deficit, he is trying to lay blame at someone else's feet if the economy gets worse, which under his policies, it most certainly will.

Here they are:

OBAMA: "We have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages. It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values." THE FACTS: If the administration has come up with a way to ensure money only goes to those who got in honest trouble, it hasn't said so. Defending the program Tuesday at a Senate hearing, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said it's important to save those who made bad calls, for the greater good. He likened it to calling the fire department to put out a blaze caused by someone smoking in bed. "I think the smart way to deal with a situation like that is to put out the fire, save him from his own consequences of his own action but then, going forward, enact penalties and set tougher rules about smoking in bed." Similarly, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. suggested this month it's not likely aid will be denied to all homeowners who overstated their income or assets to get a mortgage they couldn't afford. "I think it's just simply impractical to try to do a forensic analysis of each and every one of these delinquent loans," Sheila Bair told National Public Radio.

In other words, you and I will be working to pay off mortgages for people like Peggy The Moocher.

OBAMA: "And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it." THE FACTS: Depends what your definition of automobiles, is. According to the Library of Congress, the inventor of the first true automobile was probably Germany's Karl Benz, who created the first auto powered by an internal combustion gasoline engine, in 1885 or 1886. In the U.S., Charles Duryea tested what library researchers called the first successful gas-powered car in 1893. Nobody disputes that Henry Ford created the first assembly line that made cars affordable.

It's hard to believe that any Ivy League institution would be proud of an alumnus who can't get the facts of history straight.

OBAMA: "We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before." THE FACTS: Oil imports peaked in 2005 at just over 5 billion barrels, and have been declining slightly since. The figure in 2007 was 4.9 billion barrels, or about 58 percent of total consumption. The nation is on pace this year to import 4.7 billion barrels, and government projections are for imports to hold steady or decrease a bit over the next two decades.

Again, scare tactics from the One who wanted to give us "hope and change." What he is basically saying here is that he wants us all to pony up more money for unproven technologies and make his environmentalist friends and lobbyists rich in the process.

OBAMA: "We have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade." THE FACTS: Although 10-year projections are common in government, they don't mean much. And at times, they are a way for a president to pass on the most painful steps to his successor, by putting off big tax increases or spending cuts until someone else is in the White House. Obama only has a real say on spending during the four years of his term. He may not be president after that and he certainly won't be 10 years from now.

And don't forget that the price tag of the porkulus package is over $1.3 trillion. If Obama's above statement were true, then there is no deficit right now and our children and grandchildren won't have to work to pay off our debt. I don't know of a single reputable economist who would agree with that. Certainly, the Congressional Budget Office does not agree with that assessment since they are predicting that our economy will shrink as a result of the porkulus/spendulus bill.

OBAMA: "Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day." THE FACTS: This may be so, but it isn't only Republicans who pushed for deregulation of the financial industries. The Clinton administration championed an easing of banking regulations, including legislation that ended the barrier between regular banks and Wall Street banks. That led to a deregulation that kept regular banks under tight federal regulation but extended lax regulation of Wall Street banks. Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, later an economic adviser to candidate Obama, was in the forefront in pushing for this deregulation.

And here you have probably the most glaring example of Obama trying to pass the buck. I can tell you one set of regulations that wasn't gutted: those regulations in the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act that forced banks to make bad loans to risky home buyers and ultimately resulted in the credit crisis we are in today. Obama actually tells a bold-faced lie here by making it seem like lenders did this voluntarily. Sorry, but it was the 1977 CRA (passed and signed into law by Democrats) that is to blame, not the Republicans.

OBAMA: "In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them. We'll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use. We will root out the waste, fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn't make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas." THE FACTS: First, his budget does not accomplish any of that. It only proposes those steps. That's all a president can do, because control over spending rests with Congress. Obama's proposals here are a wish list and some items, including corporate tax increases and cuts in agricultural aid, will be a tough sale in Congress. Second, waste, fraud and abuse are routinely targeted by presidents who later find that the savings realized seldom amount to significant sums. Programs that a president might consider wasteful have staunch defenders in Congress who have fought off similar efforts in the past.

This also shows Obama's ignorance on economic matters. Companies do not outsource jobs because the American tax system gives them a break, they outsource them because the tax system already makes it more expensive to hire American than it does to ship the jobs offshore. If our corporate tax code were not so suffocating, fewer jobs would get shipped overseas. Obama's plans will ensure that more jobs go outside of the United States.

OBAMA: "Thanks to our recovery plan, we will double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years." THE FACTS: While the president's stimulus package includes billions in aid for renewable energy and conservation, his goal is unlikely to be achieved through the recovery plan alone. In 2007, the U.S. produced 8.4 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, including hydroelectric dams, solar panels and windmills. Under the status quo, the Energy Department says, it will take more than two decades to boost that figure to 12.5 percent.

And it will cost more to implement and continue to run these energy production facilities than it costs to use the proven technologies we already have. Plus, you have hypocrits like Ted Kennedy opposing windmills near their vacation homes because it somehow disrupts their view.

OBAMA: "Over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs." THE FACTS: This is a recurrent Obama formulation. But job creation projections are uncertain even in stable times, and some of the economists relied on by Obama in making his forecast acknowledge a great deal of uncertainty in their numbers. The president's own economists, in a report prepared last month, stated, "It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error."

It also means they will have wiggle room to blame others when their own policies come up severely short.

Obama's entire speech was nothing more than window dressing. He and the Democrats are looking for a pipe dream that simply will not come true. Government cannot magically create jobs and energy sources have these nagging little things like the laws of physics to contend with. Further, taxpayers will not appreciate having to bail out people like Peggy the Moocher and other malcontents waiting for a welfare handout while the rest of us actually get off of our rears and at least try to do work.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

FACT CHECK: Obama's Words On Home Aid Ring Hollow
Calvin Woodward and Jim Kuhnhenn (Tom Raum, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Dina Cappiello also contributed)
Associated press via TownHall.com
February 25, 2009

The Obama Presidency: Here Comes Socialism

Well, we voted for change. The question is, will the change be good or bad?

I'm betting bad. Just as Jimmy Carter had a liberal Democrat Congress to tinker with the economy, so does Barack Obama, only moreso. But, the Dems today are much further to the left than the Dems of the 70's. Back in the 70's, the Dems actually cared about the well-being of America while today's Dems care more for forcing their socialist agenda on a population that will regret it.

Just look at Europe. Depsite their touting themselves as being "enlightened" and better than the rest of the world (i.e. the United States) their collective economy is in a permanent state of shambles and their societies are deteriorating at the hands of leftists in conjunction with immigrants who refuse to assimilate. High unemployement, high taxes and low quality services. That is what they offer.

Socialism is and always will be a disaster.

And now, we have voted for just that type of disaster to happen here.

Writing for Town Hall, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann have this to say about Barack Obama's policies:

[W]e enter his administration as free enterprise, market-dominated, laissez-faire America. We will shortly become like Germany, France, the United Kingdom or Sweden -- a socialist democracy in which the government dominates the economy, determines private sector priorities and offers a vastly expanded range of services to many more people at much higher taxes.

This will all be part and parcel to Obama's New Deal which will be every bit as disastrous as FDR's, whose policies made the Great Depression last at least ten years longer than it should have. Here is a recap of how well it went:

[H]is New Deal measures only succeeded in lowering the unemployment rate from 23 percent in 1933 when he took office to 13 percent in the summer of 1937. It never went lower. And his policies of over-regulation generated such business uncertainty that they triggered a second-term recession. Unemployment rose to 17 percent in 1938 and, in 1940, on the verge of the war-driven recovery, stood at 15 percent.

First, Obama will ensure that he can buy votes for the next election as follows:

In the name of short-term stimulus, he will give every American family (who makes less than $200,000) a welfare check of $1,000 euphemistically called a refundable tax credit. And he will so sharply cut taxes on the middle class and the poor that the number of Americans who pay no federal income tax will rise from the current one-third of all households to more than half. In the process, he will create a permanent electoral majority that does not pay taxes, but counts on ever expanding welfare checks from the government.

That wonderful Florida voter named Peggy the Moocher must certainly be licking her chops right now at the premise that she can be as lazy as she wants to be while other hard-working Americans support her.

Here are some other aspects of Obama's New Deal:

With a congressional mandate to run the deficit up as high as need be, there is no reason to raise taxes now and risk aggravating the depression. Instead, Obama will follow the opposite of the Reagan strategy. ... Obama will raise spending and increase the deficit so that conservatives cannot cut taxes. And when the economy is restored, he will raise taxes with impunity since the only people who would have to pay them would be rich Republicans. In the name of stabilizing the banking system, Obama will nationalize it. Using TARP funds to write generous checks to needy financial institutions, his administration will demand preferred stock in exchange. Preferred stock gets dividends before common stockholders do. With the massive debt these companies will owe to the government, they will only be able to afford dividends for preferred stockholders -- the government, not private investors.

And what about Health Care? Obama and the socialist Dems will seek to force a Nationalized rationed health care system like the disasters that cover Canada and the United Kingdom.

Without a lot more doctors, nurses, clinics, equipment and hospital beds, health resources will be strained to the breaking point. The people and equipment that currently serve 250 million Americans and largely neglect all but the emergency needs of the other 50 million will now have to serve everyone. And as government imposes ever more draconian price controls and income limits on doctors, the supply of practitioners and equipment will decline as the demand escalates. Price increases will be out of the question so the government will impose health care rationing, denying the older and sicker among us the care they need and even barring them from paying for it themselves. (Rationing based on income and price will be seen as immoral).

Even more scary is how Obama plans to get an even larger share of the vote by buying off illegal immigrants with amnesty:

He will move quickly to legalize all those who have been in America for five years, albeit illegally, and to smooth their paths to citizenship and voting. He will weaken border controls in an attempt to hike the Latino vote as high as he can in order to make red states like Texas into blue states like California. By the time he is finished, Latinos and African-Americans will cast a combined 30 percent of the vote.

Is this the "change" you voted for? Have more of your money confiscated and then have it redistributed among illegals and other moochers? Have your quality health care replaced by sub-standard nationalized health care?

If so, you will reap what you sow. If not, you'll have a good, long, hard four years during which you may consider the results of the previous four years.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

The Obama Presidency: Here Comes Socialism
Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
TownHall.com
January 21, 2009