As I organized my thoughts about the President’s speech on health care last night, what struck me more than anything was the utter disingenuousness of the address. Even as he engaged in harsh attacks on his critics, he spoke in conciliatory terms about listening to Republican ideas and working in a bipartisan manner.
But, his biggest whopper was his contention that the debate over health care which has erupted in congressional town halls and spilled over into the streets has increased distrust in government:
But what we’ve also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have towards their own government. Instead of honest debate, we’ve seen scare tactics.
As I put it earlier today in a passage which, I believe, deserved greater prominence that at the end of a long post below the jump:
But, the president can’t act as if only those criticizing his plan are contributing to the disdain Americans have toward government. He — and his allies– have contributed to the growing anti-government sentiment far more than any of his political adversaries. They didn’t create that disdain. They tapped into it.
His critics didn’t create the disdain for government. Obama and the Democrats didn’t either, but the President, like his predecessor, contributed to it by his spendthrift policies, vastly increasing the size and scope of the federal government. And the incumbent has made a far greater contribution than the man he succeeded, largely in the contradiction (manifest even in his speech last night) between his words and his deeds.
He decried the spendthrift policies of the Bush Administration,telling us in the campaign that we were “living beyond our means” and having voting in 2006 against raising the debt limit, contending that the need for the increase was “a sign of leadership failure.” But, as President, he increased federal spending at a far more rapid clip than his predecessor; he recently asked Congress to raise the “debt ceiling” even further.
No, the Tea Parties –and other protests against the President’s spendthrift policies—did not harden the disdain Americans feel for their government. They merely tapped into what the President called last night Americans’ “fierce defense of freedom and our healthy skepticism of government.” The President might have succeeded in softening our disdain had he not proposed policies which spend liberally from the treasury and and interfere inordinately in our lives.
bottom line from Obama’s healthcare speech: Rep. Joe Wilson’s childish and disrespectful outburst will rally the democrats to pass a bill with a public option. How sad his one second lapse in maturity and judgment will trump everything and cement the new legislation.
First Sanford, now this clown. South Carolina is full of it these days.
‘The President might have succeeded in softening our disdain had he not proposed policies which spend liberally and and interfere inordinately in our lives.”
If he had not spent liberally, we would now be in a depression.
And please tell, Daniel – serious question here – how has Obama interfered with your life? A couple of examples would do…
It’s true that the townhalls have increased disdain of the government, and that is because of politicians’ responses to the townhalls.
Disdain for the government is a good thing!
Of course libs always want you embracing the government, so I can see why they’re mad.
Here, take a look at what the libs want you to do:
http://images.cafepress.com/image/28700815_400x400.jpg
Serious response to the government-truster who made the 2nd comment:
Obama has interfered in our lives by:
-Raising the deficit to $2 trillion and doubling the national debt in the next 10 years (according to his own predictions), thus hurting the economy and causing us to pay high taxes.
-Trying to nationalize healthcare, which would drop us from our current plan (indeed he has often said that he will force insurance cos to cover a wide range of things and to have other regulations that will limit our abilities to chose certain plans that don’t fit Obama’s regulations).
-Raised our credit card rates by passing a bill that restricts certain kinds of credit card offers, thus adding to the rates of people who actually pay their bills on time. (Also not allowing some people to use credit cards due to new regulations.)
Just a few, but most of what he does falls under destroying the economy and raising taxes, because he keeps spending on the 10% unemployment-rate-creating stimulus plan, the budget deficit plan, trying to pass healthcare and carbon tax, bailouts, buying General Motors, etc, etc.
The Cloward-Piven Strategy is working quite nicely.
If Obama had given business, big and small, one iota of hope for a profitable future, we’d be out of this Democrat-created housing/banking failure; America has always been quite resilient.
Porkulus, cap ‘n trade, takeover of 1/6 of the economy, more and more people unemployed and on unemployment, more mortgage foreclosures to come…it’s looking good for the Obama-Soros-ACORN-future.
Oh Great One, the Dear Leader: Disdain toward a thieving, looting government – such as yours – is morally mandatory, and America was FOUNDED on it. Since you don’t understand that, you do not deserve your Presidential office.
Whoa. Let me get this straight, Tano. The destruction of our nieces’, nephews’ and children’s futures through a planned doubling of a national debt that already neither they nor we can possibly pay back, is somehow NOT intereference in our lives, in your book?
The Dear Leader’s minions never cease to amaze me.
Sarah Palin’s response to Obama – phrased rather more politely than mine: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=131081638434&ref=nf
#7, now now, it’s an investment remember?
Here’s what I don’t get about liberals: They all say that government is a patriarchal, oppressive, imperialist tool of the evil white male masters; then, they say “We demand government run health care.” WTF? I would think that if you saw the US government as an imperialist aggressor who destroys whatever it comes in contact with, you’d pretty much not want them distributing the scarce health care resources. If our military “death panels” are indiscriminately killing civilians in Afghanistan, why would we want government officials in charge of Grandma’s nursing home?
Wish I was in DC today! It looks like a great turn out…
Obama gave $4500 of my childrens money to trade in their serviceable older car. I …who bought a new vehicle last year with my own money and good credit got……zilch. I didn’t want anything. I’m not a mooch. But for others to benefit from our childrens and grand childrens debt is horrible. That’s how Obama s ruining our country.
to the dummy who claimed that spending more than $1trillion has saved the US economy from depression, I say that your understanding of economics is at zero level, and I give you an F, just like I gave Obummer an F when he signed the porkulus.
The fact of the matter is that there are lead times and lags, and so far any money spent has not led to job opportunities for the millions that are presently unemployed. Also, it should be pointed out that any economy needs the best mix of private and govt spending to survive. Govt can only spend according to tax receipts. If people are unemployed then there is a drop in tax receipts. On top of that, when people are unemployed there is a drop in savings.
There is also a drop in savings when Govt is taking more money in the way of taxes. The effect of the drop in savings is that this drop leads to a drop in Investment. The drop on Investment means that the economy starts heading towards a depression.
These days what is defined as “depression” is based upon a measure of growth indicators over a quarter. You need to have several quarters of lack of growth or negative growth to determine that there is a depression.
In the last blip, that is a few quarters of negative growth, if G (govt) had done nothing, I think that there would have been a bounce back anyway. The blip was due to the uneasiness of investors towards the race for nomination for president as well as the elections themselves. There were of course other factors.
Another issue that has been raised is the protectionism of Obummer. His announcement of a tax or surcharge on Chinese tyres could be detrimental to any recovery within the US economy. The reason is obvious since the Chinese are not happy about this measure, and on top of that the Chinese hold trillions in junk US treasury bonds. If they decided to recall those bonds….. well…. the situation would be far worse than the Great Depression.
The fact is that none of the world economies approached anywhere near the status that existed prior to the Great Depression last year when the panic ensued. The measures that were taken are more likely in the long term to cause another larger depression than if nothing had been done. This is true for Australia, the UK and the countries participating in G20. I think that the economic advisors today are in fact wrong in their advice….