As I finished the video and reviewing the transcript yesterday, I
literally had to go take a walk and cool off. The Presidents statement is so
packed with a mix of misrepresentations and outright lies – its mind bending to
me that the American people elected such a manipulative liar as their leader.
Not only does he attack Republicans and blame them for the
sequester that HE DEMANDED for and CREATED VIA an EXECTUVE ORDER in earlier
months – but the Republicans came to him over and over with plans to avoid this
and he NEVER worked with them at all. In his weekly address he carries on and
on about police officers, fireman, teachers, etc. – not getting paid and not being able to do their
jobs if the cuts happen. Police, firefighters and teachers have their salaries
paid by local city, county and state tax revenues – so this claim on the part
of the President and flatly false. He is using rhetoric and speech that can only
serve one purpose – to strike fear in the hearts of our citizens and fool them
into believing it was the evil Republicans that did this. So this is no longer simply –
misdirection’s or misinformation – this outright lies on the part of our
President. That is shameful.
How did the
country find itself in this budget mess and economic crisis to begin with?
Here are the historical facts – documented, web-linked an
indisputable. Every claim I have am making here and have made in previous posts
is documented and backed up with facts. Each claim in this post is either
linked to web-based research and/or provided in the Resources & Links area
on the bottom of this post.
First – we did not reach the economic crisis quickly – it
started in the 1990’s. No one was making bad home loans to unqualified people
until
Democrats came along and threatened to drag banks into court and have them fined. Some Democrats even branded the
bankers as racists if they didn't go along with the left's Affirmative Action
lending policies...all while federally insuring their losses. Even the
New York Times warned in the late 1990s
that Democrats continuing to force banks into lowering their standards would
lead to this exact economic catastrophe.
Obama himself is even on the record personally helping sue
one lender (Citibank) into lowering its lending standards to include people
from extremely poor and unstable areas, which even one of the left's favorite "fact-checkers,"
Snopes, admits (while pretending to 'set the record straight').
But non-Fox media have spent years deliberately and
relentlessly inoculating people against the facts, training them to mindlessly
blame Bush for being in charge when it was Democrats in charge of policy and
spending - and their policies destroyed the economy. So here we sit, to this
day, still watching Obama under his own presidency; excuse and shrug off
endless economic failures, illegal government takeovers, and a rush to national
bankruptcy with zero accountability.
John McCain also
co-sponsored urgently critical reforms that would have prevented the housing market
collapse, but Democrats shut that down as well, along party lines, and even
openly ridiculed
anyone who suggested reforms were necessary...to protect their taxpayer-funded
campaign contributions as the economy raced uncontrollably toward the financial
cliff.
During the summer of 2011, as Washington worked toward a
plan to reduce the deficit to allow for an increase in the federal debt limit,
President Obama and John Boehner very nearly came to a historic agreement.
Unfortunately the deal fell apart at the last minute when the President
demanded an extra $400 billion in new tax revenue—50% more than we had shaken
hands on just days before.
So he (the President) sabotaged the budget plan. Who went
back on his word? President Obama did! As a matter of fact; if you follow the
events in chronological order – you see a pattern emerge. The pattern is simply
this – President Obama for the sake of political posturing and in order to
‘appear’ to be tough on Republicans – never intended to work this thing out at
all. There is no other conclusion to be drawn now that we can look back at what
has transpired and more specifically the President’s behavior.
Here are the events that lead to the so-called ‘Sequester’
& the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ - In time order:
The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform – YouTube; (often called
Bowles-Simpson Commission) - from the names of co-chairs Alan
Simpson and Erskine Bowles; or NCFRR. This is a Presidential Commission created
in 2010
by President Barack Obama to
identify …policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to
achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run. The commission first met on
April 27, 2010. A report was released on December 1, 2010, and although the
Commission was supported by over 60% of the members (11 out of 18), and an
equal number of Democrats and Republicans – President Obama turned down every
one of their suggestions and dismissed their entire plan.
(Note in the YouTube video link
above – the senate had been under continual control by Democrats. In his Jan
2010 SOTU – Obama said he would enact the Fiscal Commission by Executive Order
because the Senate blocked his bill/proposal. The President cannot tell us now
that the Debt Commission was not his idea – he ordered it by Executive Order).
I will remind you that Bowles is a
long time Democrat - Bowles served as Clinton's White House Deputy Chief of
Staff, in the first term of the Clinton Administration. He was the guy that
helped President Clinton to work with Republicans in the 1990’s – to track back
to the middle on tax and fiscal policies – which stopped a short term recession
by bringing us back in line with Reagan's policies of the 1980’s.
Next - President Obama and John
Boehner come to an agreement. The very next day, the President breaks the
agreement and derails the entire process.
Immediately, John Boehner reaches out to Harry Reid and the Senate to forge a new plan; which they do. Again, President Obama refuses to work with them. Why – again political posturing – he did not want to face a national debate on the debt-limit increase just before his re-election. (Is that leadership or politics? Rhetorical question – it’s not leadership! He was just looking out for himself; not the nation).
NOTE – here is a link to a video of Erskine Bowles
addressing an audience of students and professionals about President Obama’s
Debt Commission and his refusal to follow their suggestions and plans. His
address was in November 2011 at Columbia Business School.
See minutes 6:11 –
10:55 of this video link
It was a disappointing decision by the president, but with
just days until a breach of the debt limit, a solution was still required—and
fast. John Boehner immediately got together with Senate leaders Harry Reid and
Mitch McConnell to forge a bipartisan congressional plan. It would be called
the Budget Control Act.
The plan called for immediate caps on discretionary spending
(to save $917 billion) and the creation of a special House-Senate "super
committee" to find an additional $1.2 trillion in savings. The deal also
included a simple but powerful mechanism to ensure that the committee met its
deficit-reduction target: If it didn't, the debt limit would not be increased
again in a few months.
But President Obama was determined not to face another
debt-limit increase before his re-election campaign (it would appear nearly
every considerations by our President is driven by posturing and politics – to hell
with what we really need – which is a leader). Having just blown up one deal, the
president scuttled this bipartisan, bicameral agreement. His solution? A
sequester.
With the debt limit set to be hit in a matter of hours,
Republicans and Democrats in Congress reluctantly accepted the
President's demand for the sequester, and a revised version of the Budget Control Act was passed
on a bipartisan basis.
Ultimately, the super committee failed to find an agreement,
despite Republicans offering a balanced mix of spending cuts and new revenue
through tax reform. As a result, the president's sequester is now imminent.
Every crisis we have faced under President Obama was either
allowed to happen (could have been prevented); or manufactured so he could use
it for political gamesmanship. He is not a leader- he is a partisan hack; more
concerned with power and ideology than doing anything to help the American People.
God help us!
Resources & Links
