Let’s take a trip down memory lane. Some of the OWS crowd are still parroting the Obama campaign mantra of “eight failed years of Bush policies” that half of America bought into. But when you look back at the facts you learn that Obama is on the team that helped create the problem we are facing. This has been well documented (and equally ignored by Democrats and their pet press cronies). Despite 9/11, Bush II enjoyed a strong economy for six years. What changed? 1) Democratic control of Congress, and 2) the much anticipated burst of the housing bubble. Republicans don’t entirely own this process, in fact, Democrats own the vast majority of the responsibility. But that’s not what the President said in his first press conference. (for some perspective on the first presser, read this and/or this.)
“As I said, the one concern I’ve got on the stimulus package, in terms of the debate and listening to some of what’s been said in Congress is that there seems to be a set of folks who — I don’t doubt their sincerity — who just believe that we should do nothing.”
Democrats today are fond of calling Republicans “the party of no” and falsely claiming that Republicans have never offered alternative plans. As Ed Morrissey said after an Obama press conference in 2009, Republicans in both the House and Senate have offered at least two alternative stimulus packages. None of them demanded that Obama “do nothing”. In fact, it was the Congressional Budget Office and not Republicans that suggested that doing nothing might have a better effect than the Obama/Pelosi/Reid stimulus bill.”
At the time Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd among others were, and still are, in complete denial of how this crisis was created. Team Obama campaigned on the “eight years of failed Bush policies” slogan that is frankly a bald-faced lie. In fact, according to Barron’s, “Contrary to a view popularized during the 2008 presidential election season, the current economic crisis was not the result of deregulation. The Bush administration made many mistakes, but deregulation was not one of them. Not only was there no major deregulation passed during the past eight years, but the Bush administration and a Republican Congress approved the most sweeping financial-market regulation in decades.”
Let me repeat that. “The Bush administration and a Republican Congress approved the most sweeping financial-market regulation in decades.” Even Liberal financial genius George Soros has opined on the cause of the crisis.
“Consider how the crisis has unfolded over the past eighteen months. The proximate cause is to be found in the housing bubble or more exactly in the excesses of the sub-prime mortgage market. The longer a double-digit rise in house prices lasted, the more lax the lending practices became. In the end, people could borrow 100 percent of inflated house prices with no money down. Insiders referred to sub-prime loans as ninja loans—no income, no job, no questions asked.” — George Soros
Our economic situation was not created by “eight years of failed Bush policies.” It was not created by big oil or Dick Cheney. It was born in1977 under Jimmy Carter in the form of the CRC; it was strengthened in1995-1999 by Bill Clinton and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Rubin “brokered a deal between the administration and Congress that allowed banking deregulation to move forward. Shortly after the compromise was reached, Rubin took a top position at Citigroup, which went on to embark upon mergers that would have been rendered illegal under Glass-Steagall. As the New York Times put it, Rubin would be leading “what has become the first true American financial conglomerate since the Depression”—a conglomerate that could exist only because of legislation he had just shepherded through Congress.” (source)
Our liberal friends are saying ”But Bush was a de-regulator! It was the deregulation that did it man!” Wrong. GWB started raising red flags in 2001, and disclosed at a Congressional hearing in 2003 that “a new agency would have been created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.” What was the Democratic response to this suggestion?”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not in a financial crisis,’‘ (source: see 2:25) said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee in 2003. Personally, if we can jail the CEOs of Enron and Worldcom, I think Frank should be in jail for his poitical and financial negligence. He is willfully denying the truth that has put America in a scary place.
So, I implore President Obama and the left to stop with the scare tacticts and stop with the lies. Stop blaming the previous president for the country’s woes and start doing something about it. And I don’t mean do anything, I mean do the right thing. Swift, knee-jerk actions made under diress do not usually have positive outcomes. Funding green companies with billions of tax dollars without doing the proper financial analysis will give you the same result experienced by many that funded anything with “dot com” after its name about a decade ago. Slow down, think this through. And for God’s sake please include both parties in the problem solving process. Stop campaigning, start leading.
I got into a “debate” with a facebook friend about Obama’s accomplishments, or lack thereof. My friend thinks passing sweeping health care reform that nobody read and most don’t understand was a major triumph. I then presented a variation of the list below to him and he scoffed and assumed I was quoting from “some tea-bagging neo-con blog.” Sorry… these are real sources. Sometimes the truth hurts. Stop drinking the kool-aid, it is deadly. Wake up, look at reality and stop thinking with your heart. Yes, our health care system needs reform, but the monstrosity that Obama/Reid/Pelosi passed is not the solution.
With a week to go before the most important election in our lifetime I ask you to consider the following: ObamaCare is a massively expensive governmental power grab that will cause more harm than good. If you think this is the best thing to come out of the Obama administration, let me point out a dozen things that were “in the bill” that Congress failed to read, but passed anyway, with Speaker Pelosi saying that we had to pass it to find out what was in it.
They might as well be driving on the highway with their eyes closed.
- “Boeing will cut back its health-care insurance plans and require greater employee contributions, 90,000 nonunion workers to pay significantly more for their health plan.” (Seattle Times)
- “For seniors who wish to keep their current plans, out-of-pocket costs will increase.” (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
- “Beginning January 1, 2011, more than 15,00 over-the-counter health care items will require a prescription for a tax-free reimbursement. “ (The Examiner)
- “HHS has already missed one-third of the deadlines contained within the legislation for the first six months under Obama’s law.” (Heartland Institute)
- “A study by Towers Watson suggests more than three-quarters of employers surveyed believe companies will drop coverage as a result of health-care reform, and 50% of them plan to do so themselves. The move by 3M will likely be the first of many more similar announcements to come.” (Motley Fool)
- “Hewitt Associates study projects an 8.8% average premium increase for employees, compared with a 6.9% jump in 2010.” (National Conference of State Legislatures)
- “Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums for some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul in coming weeks” (Wall Street Journal)
- “Health premiums may rise 17% for young adults buying own insurance” (AP/USA Today)
- “More than 3 million beneficiaries will see their current drug plan eliminated as Medicare tries to winnow down duplicative and confusing coverage.” (AP/Yahoo News)
- “The Obama administration has not ruled out turning sick people away from the $5 billion high-risk pool program created by the new healthcare law to provide coverage for the uninsured. Rational analysis says it will run out of money before Jan. 1, 2014. That’s when the program sunsets and health plans can no longer discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.” (The Hill)
- “AT&T said that it is preparing for President Obama’s health care overhaul to cost the telecommunications giant an additional $1 billion in expenses in the first quarter, possibly forcing the company to cut benefits it offers to current and retired workers. AK Steel Corp., Caterpillar, Deere and Valero Energy announced similar accounting charges, saying the health care law will raise their expenses.” (CNN)
- “the companies — so far, they include AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, Deere, Valero Energy, AK Steel and 3M — said a tax provision in the new health care law will make it far more expensive to provide prescription drug coverage to their retired employees.” (Washington Examiner)
Is this leadership? Is this the fundamental transformation of America that you voted for? Or are these cuts and negative fallout what you should expect from a president that has never lead before and his Chicago-style win at all costs mentality? And think about this: Democrats locked Republicans out of debate and negotiations about health care line items, and now have the unmitigated gaul to say that Republicans are obstructionists and share the blame for the problems we face today? The Democrats have a massive majority, and it still took bribes and intimidation to get the votes needed to pass this pig?
Please, I beg of you. If you think this bill is a good bill, do some more research. I’ve provided sources for every quote above. It took me fifteen minutes with a web search engine to find this stuff. If you refuse to do the homework and still support Obama because he’s not George W. Bush, please just stay home. An uneducated vote is more dangerous for America than you probably realize.
Another excellent segment from Glenn Beck. He ties all sorts of stuff together, but the left still thinks he’s doing this all for ratings. Watch this and tell me what you disagree with.
