I transcribed it and interlaced my commentary in bold:
1) For 30 years I’ve heard politicians talking about health care reform, and he’s the first one to do something about it.
Actually, all sorts of programs have been installed over the decades, the most notable of which include Medicare, Medicaid, Prescription Drugs, and HMO legislation. Interestingly, this last item was instituted by none other than democrat Ted Kennedy. So it is simply false to assert that Obama is the first to do something.
The Affordable Care Act removes restrictions on pre-existing conditions, makes healthcare affordable for small businesses, raises the age at which children can be on their parents’ policies, removes lifetime caps, and more.
These are the benefits given incessant fanfare, but what about the remaining 1699 pages of the legislation? Do you think there is the possibility that there might be something important contained there? Like more than 100 new bureaucracies? Pages and pages of review boards, regulations, requirements, and penalties?
And, since these trumpeted features are expansions of coverage, one might justifiably conclude that these have to cost someone something somewhere.
With the possible exception of insurance execs, who would not want these changes?
Actually, the insurance industry stands to make a boatload of money from obamacare. After all, the number of uninsured people is supposed to decrease, which means millions more customers.
The 60+ percent of people who don't like obamacare are not ignorant of its features, which is how its supporters like to dismiss them. The fact is, most people don't like to be told what they need, they know from experience that the government frequently makes things worse, and they also realize that what they are told will happen does not happen with surprising frequency.
2) He ended the war in Iraq and is drawing the war in Afghanistan to a close. Like he said he would.
Generally speaking, President Obama simply followed the timeline put in place by Bush. Almost without exception, Obama continued Bush's agenda. Like keeping Gitmo open. Like killing terrorists like Osama. And ironically, this is all courtesy of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president.
3) He thinks women should have access to free preventative health care. Why is this still an issue?
Why does anyone (let alone women) feel like they're entitled to free anything? And has anyone stopped to figure out who is paying for this free stuff? And why is it only women who are entitled to free preventative health care? And why is it self-evident that this shouldn't be an issue?
4) He believes in equality for all people and signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to help women get equal pay for equal work... Even the Left-leaning Slate knows that this is largely a fiction, perpetrated by people who are unable to engage in appropriate statistical analysis but instead rely on broad generalizations.
One might wonder if there is any outrage for the fact that top Democrats in Congress routinely pay their female staffers less than male staffers. Including Obama. Female employees in the Obama White House make considerably less than their male colleagues, records show.
According to the 2011 annual report on White House staff, female employees earned a median annual salary of $60,000, which was about 18 percent less than the median salary for male employees ($71,000).
...and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Which was installed by President Bill Clinton...
5) He is promoting and investing in clean energy jobs. Finally. Really? How much stock in green energy does President Obama own in his investment portfolio? Oh, sorry, you meant he's investing OUR money in clean energy.
And what a great investment! Green energy companies are going bankrupt left and right, sometimes right after accepting government money.
6) He supports education by giving more flexibility to No Child Left Behind (thank you!) and by making college aid more available.
NCLB is legislation. Does President Obama now have the power to pass, rescind, or modify legislation? When was the Constitution amended to allow the President to do such things? We know he is ignoring other pieces of legislation, like refusing to enforce the Defense of Marriage act. Whatever you might think of the duly passed laws of the land, you must agree that the law must be obeyed and enforced.
7) He thinks millionaires and billionaires should pay their fair share of taxes like the rest of us. Really, this is a no brainer.
I suspect that the phrase "no brainer" is an appropriate selection of language. The IRS keeps track of who pays taxes, which is unfortunate for those who believe that the rich don't pay their fair share.
8) Despite inheriting one of the worst economic messes since the Great Depression, he added 2.6 million private sector jobs to our economy, and indications are that the economy is slowly improving. To anyone who thinks he’s been too slow – don’t you know you can’t turn the Titanic around in a day? Obama's hand has been at the helm of the Titanic as both Senator and President since 2007. He has been in ideological agreement with those who brought on this disaster for much longer. As a senator, Obama participated in the budgets, voted in favor of the bailouts, and was involved in all the financial dealings and initiatives that came before the Senate. He had a democratic congress his first two years as president, and did nothing. So, he didn't inherit anything, he created it, voted for it, and agreed with it and continued it.
He didn't add any jobs to the economy. Employers did. And the number 2.6 million is only one half of the equation. The other half is how many jobs have been lost. In 2009, 142,187,000 people were working. This year: 142,287,000 people are. That's an increase of 100,000 jobs since the official end of the recession. 2.6 million jobs may have been created, but almost as many have been destroyed.
Regarding the slow nature of changing course, the average duration of recessions/depressions is 18 months. The notable exceptions are the Great Depression and now the 2008 recession, both of which are characterized by huge government interventions and myriad spending programs. Is it possible that the intractable nature of this recession is being made worse by Obama?
I voted for him before and will vote for him again.
Good luck with that.
I don't particularly dislike Obama and in fact voted for him last time. But I think it reveals some blind spot on the part of the person who wrote this list that item 4 directly follows item 3. Any person of normal sensibilities would have said "Whoops!" and at least put them farther apart in the list in an effort to camouflage the glaring conflict between them.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone particularly dislikes Obama. He seems like a nice guy. But his policies have been disastrous. And of course, as you discerned, some of his supporters are not particularly deep thinkers.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your comment!