The Lies and Broken Promises of Barack H. Obama
I had planned to do this post even before being challenged, and because it is always better to live up to your end of a bargain… even if the other party is too ethically challenged to do so… I present for everyone’s review a list of some of the more blatant lies told by Barack H. Obama, with supporting citations.
Pay attention to the detailed sources listed and the direct quotes. Particularly if you are a whiny, intellectually dysfunctional, congenitally dishonest, progressive, adolescent braggart and preening, self-aggrandizing bully wannabe.
This is how it’s done, kid!
Or more correctly, this is what you couldn’t manage to do!
TRANSPARENCY
This link leads to eight different video clips of Obama promising “openness” and “transparency” in the health care legislation process, and C-SPAN broadcast of the negotiations,
…so the American people can be a part of the negotiating process.
According to Obama, in the Clintons’ 1993 effort by the to ”re-do” health care,
…they made one big mistake.  They took all the people into one big room and then they closed the door.
I can promise you this, it will be transparent, it will be accountable…uh… to the American people.
Look, if you’ve got better ideas, I’m happy to listen to them… but all this will be done on C-SPAN, in front of the public.
One of my jobs as president will be to guide this process… so that it’s an honest process.
As we all know, the process was anything but open, honest, or transparent. Both the House and Senate bills were written behind closed doors, by Democrats, with no GOP input or involvement. And while Republicans did have some “better ideas”, to quote Obama, those ideas never got a hearing, much less a vote (another lie?). And, of course, no part of the now discredited health care reform process was ever broadcast on C-SPAN as Obama so often promised.
In fact, so frequent and egregious were Obama’s lies about making the health care reform process open, honest, and transparent, that C-SPAN CEO Mr. Brian Lamb sent this letter to the Obama White House and Congressional Leaders of both parties demanding that promises to the public be kept and that C-SPAN be allowed to televise “all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings.” Mr. Lamb’s plea has been ignored by the Obama White House and by Democrats in charge of both the House and the Senate. (here)
Of course the lack of health care transparency shouldn’t be a surprise. Obama’s first piece of legislation, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the so-called “stimulus” bill, was also written behind closed doors, out of GOP and public view. And though the votes were taken in public, sort of, Democrats in both the House and the Senate acknowledged that they hadn’t read the bill and probably wouldn’t have understood it if they had.
While we’re talking health care, the other big Obama lie was that it would be a less costly solution and that it would be “deficit neutral.” (see Obama’s Inaugural Speech, here).
Fortunately, a joint report by CBO and JCT shows that not only would individual health insurance premiums be more costly under the Dems’ plan, but even with five years of up-front taxes collected before any program benefits kicked in, the ten year cost would approach $1 trillion… and that’s before taxes on current health insurance plans are figured in. (here, <a href=" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071602242.html” title=“here”>here, and here)
UNEMPLOYMENT
One of Obama’s more famous promises was that his so-called “stimulus package”, nearly $800 billion, plus TARP, would create between three and four million jobs.  That campaign promise was reiterated in a patently optimistic promotional white paper from Christine Romer and Jared Bernstein entitled “THE JOB IMPACT OF THE AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT”. (here)
A package in the range that the President-Elect has discussed is expected to create between three and four million jobs by the end of 2010.
More than 90 percent of the jobs created are likely to be in the private sector.
We therefore use the relatively conservative rule of thumb that a 1 percent increase in GDP corresponds to an increase in employment of approximately 1 million jobs, or about three-quarters of a percent.
As Figure 1 shows, even with the large prototypical package ($787 billion), the unemployment rate in 2010Q4 is predicted to be approximately 7.0%, which is well below the approximately 8.8% that would result in the absence of a plan.
Now, I suppose it’s possible that a miracle could occur which would bring the unemployment rate down to the predicted 7% by the 4th quarter of this year. Just like it’s possible that I will win a $200 million Powerball Lottery.
As of today, the national unemployment rate is above 10% and apparently still rising, and few serious economists expect it to drop below 9% by this November’s congressional elections, or to 7.5% by the end of 2011.
BI-PARTISANSHIP
Perhaps one of Obama’s most famous, and inspiring lines was this gem,
There is not a liberal America, a conservative America, there is a UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, there is not a black America, a white America, a latino America, a asian America… there is a UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
And from his election night victory speech came this,
Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.
But from the WSJ last summer,
Six months into the president’s term, you don’t read much about this post-partisan future anymore. It may be because on almost every big-ticket legislative item (the stimulus, climate change, and now health care), Mr. Obama has been pushing a highly ideological agenda with little (and in some cases zero) support from across the aisle…
In itself, of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with opting to forgo bipartisanship support for the sake of getting your ideas through. That, however, is not what Candidate Obama promised.
Indeed not! One year into his presidency, one quarter of his term in office finished, Obama can point to no bi-partisan accomplishments. This isn’t because of Republican recalcitrance so much as the fact that as noted above, GOP congressmen and Senators have been shut out of the legislative process. Lock one party out of the deliberations, and there is no reason to expect that they will support the result of legislation crafted behind closed doors out of their view, and that of the public.
NO LOBBYISTS
From ABC.
President-elect Barack Obama’s pick to be deputy secretary of defense, William Lynn, violates his campaign pledge that no lobbyists will be allowed on his team working on subjects they’ve recently lobbied on, Transition officials acknowledged Friday.
Officials say they were aware that Lynn had lobbied for defense giant Raytheon as recently as last summer, but they defended their pick.
Mr. Lynn is hardly Obama’s only former lobbyist on staff.
Mr. Mark Patterson is Chief-of-Staff for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Until his appointment, he was a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs.
Obama’s Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the Executive Office of the President, who handles relations with state and local governments, is Ms. Cecilia Munoz, former lobbyist for the Council of La Raza.
Ms. Jocelyn Frye, who is now director of policy and projects in the Office of the First Lady, previously lobbied for the National Partnership for Women and Families from 2001 to 2008.
PAYGO RULES and FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
The cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and states of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.
Barack Obama has been a strong advocate for sound budget practices and the reduction of wasteful spending in Washington. He is committed to fiscal transparency and accountability and ensuring that all new tax cuts and spending commitments are paid for without burdening our children and grandchildren with excessive debt.
Obama and Biden believe that a critical step in restoring fiscal discipline is enforcing pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) budgeting rules which require new spending commitments or tax changes to be paid for by cuts to other programs or new revenue.
(Quotes taken from the campaiign website. See here)
Not much point in trying to defend Obama’s record on fiscal responsibility and the reinstitution of “Pay Go rules.” One year into his term as president, the notion of fiscal responsibility has only come up since the election losses to Republicans in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. It should be noted that the winning candidates in all three races campaigned on platforms of tax and spending cuts and public budgetary accountability… the same stuff Obama said he was for, before he was elected and in a position to ignore his campaign promises on “PayGo” and fiscal discipline, transparency, and accountability.
‘Nuff said!
Once more from the Obama/Biden campaign website,
Obama and Biden will slash earmarks to no greater than year 1994 levels and ensure all spending decisions are open to the public.
Pffft!  Last year’s Obama budget contained at least 9000 earmarks totaling nearly $8 billion.
Of course, that’s chump change compared to the $787 billion “stimulus” bill passed almost 1 year ago, loaded with all manner of earmarks and other pork, with most of the money going not to “shovel ready” projects as promised by Obama (yet another lie!) but to pay off Democrat supporters and a broad array of leftwing groups.
CONCLUSION
The above are by no means the only promises made and broken by Barack Obama. There was the promise to post bills on-line for 5 days before signing them into law, for example. Or his promise to make government expenditures available for public inspection (“Google for Government”).
There was the promise to end the “abuse” of no-bid contracts, and restrict such federal contracts to no more than $25,000. The $25 million no-bid contract to consultants Checchi and Company announced last week makes that promise more than moot. About 1000% more.
There was also the promise to improve our nation’s intelligence capability “by creating a senior position to coordinate domestic intelligence gathering,..” That promise was pretty much incinerated in the crotch of the Detroit Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, as the review of his so-called interrogation clearly demonstrates.
But these are just some of the most important lies and broken public promises made by the inexperienced Chicago-trained president.
As a footnote, Mark Levin’s purported dishonesty has yet to be authoritatively established… and of course never will be.
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