That philosophical view of life seemed appropriate when I read a recent op-ed piece in a major Tampa Bay newspaper. I will not identify the writer of the piece. In the past when I disagreed with the writer's analyses, I tried to contact them through the email address always included in the writer's column. However, the writer never even had the common decency to acknowledge the writer received my communications, never mind engaging in an adult conversation of the writer's article contents. Thus, I will not give the writer the benefit of identification here.
The writer had some definite views on how well the Obama administration was going, views that myself and the majority of Americans do not currently agree with. Same reality, different interpretations. Consider:
- "The President saved the Detroit car industry." - The President did not save the Detroit car industry, his administration meddled in what should have been a straightforward bankruptcy proceeding. American companies, big and small, have successfully gone through bankruptcy proceedings in the past and emerged a healthier entity.
General Motors and Chrysler would have done the same since they each had assets worth value. They may have survived in a different form, they may have survived with different owners but they would have survived as a result of a regular bankruptcy proceeding. And they would have survived without costing the American taxpayer tens of billions of dollars.
- "The President secured health reforms that will bring health insurance to nearly everyone." - We have thoroughly reviewed how pathetically bad Obama Care is in this blog. The reasons are too numerous to review here so let's only address the writer's assertion that nearly everyone will get health insurance as a result of President Obama's efforts.
The writer seems to ignore the reports, analyses, and experts that have shown American companies are already terminating their own health care insurance programs for their employees as a result of Obama Care. The writer seems to ignore the Forbes article from last year that interviewed the chairman of AT&T. The chairman declared there was an excellent chance AT&T could stop offering health care insurance to its employees and retirees since Obama Care made it a better financial business deal NOT to offer health care insurance programs. Verizon, John Deere and Caterpillar executives have come to the same conclusions as have other American companies.
Thus, rather than getting health care insurance for nearly everyone, Obama Care is likely to lead to millions of Americans losing their current health care insurance coverage.
- "The President used a stimulus package to stop the hemorrhaging of American jobs and avoid a Depression." The writer seems to have several problems with reality here. First, it is asserted later in the article that the economic stimulus program cost $787 billion. This illustrates how loose and fast the writer plays with facts. The Congressional Budget Office has recently concluded that the American taxpayer actually paid out $830 billion on the stimulus program. Thus, the writer's credibility takes a hit here, the writer did not even take the time to research the official government numbers before publication.
The second issue with reality is the writer conveniently passes over the fact that the President said that the unemployment rate could go as high as 8% if the economic stimulus package was not passed. It was passed and unemployment still soared well past 8%, hovering around 9% for lord knows how long.
The third issue I have with the writer is simple math. If you take the amount of money wasted by economic stimulus program, $830 billion, and divide it by the number of jobs the administration claims it created or saved, you find that the cost per job created or saved is well over $200,000 per job. You cannot claim you had a successful economic stimulus program if it costs you this outrageous amount of dollars per job.
- "The President put constraints on a reckless Wall Street." The bill the writer refers to is basically an empty shell of legislation, as pointed out by countless experts and pundits in the field. This bill punted/dodged the real work of reforming Wall Street, defaulting to nameless government bureaucrats who have yet to write the reforms, guidelines, and regulation. Giving the President credit for reforms is a false conclusion. The reforms have yet to come into reality and existence.
- "The President got Congress to repeal the discriminatory "don't ask, don't tell" law." The writer ignores the reality that Obama showed absolutely no interest in this area for over a year and was moved to action only after a REPUBLICAN organization, the Log Cabin Republicans, successfully took "don't ask, don't tell" to court. Their actions and initiatives were the prime drivers to repeal, Obama was a late interloper into the legal action by the REPUBLICAN organization. The courts and the successful Log Cabin legal case would have led to the repeal in time with no help from Obama.
- "Obama has also kept Americans safe from another terrorist attack." This is just a blatantly wrong statement. I doubt that the Americans killed by the Ft. Hood shooter and their families would agree that the President has kept America safe from another terrorist attack. The Ft Hood shootings were a terror attack, plain and simple.
Also, being lucky does not constitute keeping Americans safe. America was only two defective fuses away from two other deadly terror attacks. If the Underwear Bomber's underwear fuse does not malfunction, we have dead Americans and debris reigning down on Detroit on a Christmas day. If a defective fuse actually ignites, we have an unknown number of dead Americans in Times Square. You should not get credit for being lucky.
"Then there was the other present that George W. Bush left behind for the new President: a whopping budget deficit." No disagreement here, the CBO is quoted by the writer as the source, something the writer did not take the time to research when discussing the cost of the failed economic stimulus program.
However, what the op-ed piece neglects to mention is two other facts. First, the Congressional architects of that budget deficit came about when both houses of Congress were controlled by Democrats. Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives and Harry Reid in the Senate were in control of those two chambers of Congress in the last two years of the Bush administration. They need to share equally in the blame with Bush for the high 2009 budget deficit that Obama inherited.
This blame has to fall hard especially on Pelosi since it is in the House where the Federal government's budgets are originated, according to the Constitution. Since the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, if they had serious objections to these budget deficit numbers, they should have taken action to reduce them. They did not and Bush accepted the final budget. Thus, all three are to blame, Bush, Pelosi, and Reid.
In fact, if the writer had delved a little more into the historical budget deficit numbers, the writer would have seen that Bush administration budget deficit numbers were declining up to the point that the Democrats took over control of Congress in 2007. At that point, deficits started to rise again. Thus, the accusation of Bush being the sole bad guy in the government's budget deficit disgrace is a little thin, given the Democrats' behavior in Congress from 2007 until today.
Furthermore, the writer again omits data in order to support her version of reality. Not only was Bush administration deficits declining until the Democrats took control of Congress, a CBO report last week estimates that the Obama administration will add the same amount to the Federal government's national debt in four years that took eight years for the Bush administration to attain.
Yes, the budget deficit was over $1 TRILLION in the first year of the Obama administration. That was hand Obama was dealt, for better or worse. However, a great leader does not constantly gripe about how bad things are and blame someone else like President Obama has done for the first three years of his term. A great leader deals with the hand and reality he was dealt and uses that position as a starting point to move forward to resolving problems. That looking forward has not happened under Obama.
The writer ignores the other failures or at least the other non-resolutions of this Presidency:
- Americans, such as myself, who have had legitimate, nonviolent, well thought out contrary opinions against some of the President's policies have been unmercifully denigrated by members of his party. We have been called un-American by Democrat Nancy Pelosi, racists by Democrat Charles Rangel, members of the Klan by Democrat Shelia Jordan, knuckle dragging Neanderthals by Democrat Alan Grayson, and terrorists by Democrat Mike Dolye (and possibly also by Joe Biden). In each case, with the exception of the Doyle comment, the President has stood mum as ordinary Americans were attacked for having an opinion. Hardly a way to unite a divided country.
- The President himself is guilty of verbally attacking ordinary Americans. While campaigning last fall and speaking to a largely Latino audience, he explained how their "enemies," i.e. Americans who disagreed with the President's policies, needed to be defeated. Calling American citizens "enemies" is also no way to unite a country. The President is supposed to represent ALL citizens of the country.
- The President promised during his campaign to close the prison Guantanamo Bay. He has failed to do that.
- The President promised a during his campaign to quickly get our troops out of Iraq. It was assumed that it would not be on the Bush timetable, three years into his Presidency. And now he is considering extending the amount of time and troops we have stationed in the country, very Bush-like.
- The President involved us in an illegal war against Libyan assets. I am sure that if Bush did the same action, without Congressional approval, this writer would have been beside themselves. Given that Democrat Obama got us into this illegal military action, the writer is silent.
- Three years into this Presidency, Iran and North Korea are three years closer to being nuclear armed powers.
- Three years into this Presidency and we are no closer to resolving the Israel/Palestinian issue.
- A recent (mid-August, 2011) Zogby opinion poll of citizens in six Arab countries show that the United States and President Obama have never been held in such low regard. In fact, the poll found that President Obama is less popular in the Middle east than Iran's tyrant, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, truly an insult.
- Three years into this Presidency and our schools are still failing, our war on drugs is still being lost, we still have do not have a national energy strategy and policy, we still do not have a comprehensive and compassionate immigration policy, our borders still leak, our social net programs (e.g. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) still are rife with fraud and mismanagement, wasting hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and our health care costs are still rising dramatically.
What is the reality? The op-ed writer who picks only certain issues to paint a rosy picture of this Presidency, using only selected data to make the point? Or my view of reality that looks at all aspects and issues of this Presidency, using as many facts and as much data that is available? You decide and contact me via the comment section below of what your reality is.
I promise I will at least have the common decency to engage you an adult conversation about what is the true reality of America today unlike the writer discussed above.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available, at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/
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