Opinion

1001 Reasons to Vote Against Barack Obama – Part III

The third installment of just over one hundred reasons:

  1. President Obama’s signature program, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), referred to colloquially as “Obamacare,” was signed into law in March 2010. According to CNN, public opposition at the time was 59%, or nearly six out of ten adults surveyed. All Republicans in the House and Senate opposed and voted against the passage of the bill.
  2. When Republicans were opposed to the bill and the possibility of a filibuster loomed (with the aid of any one Democrat or Independent Senator), President Obama supported the so-called nuclear option  of “reconciliation,” a budget gimmick that would have seen the bill “passed” despite legitimate levels of opposition.
  3. Barack Obama on bipartisanship in The Audacity of Hope: “Genuine bipartisanship, though, assumes an honest process of give-and-take, and that the quality of the compromise is measured by how well it serves some agreed-upon goal, whether better schools or lower deficits. This in turn assumes that the majority will be constrained – by an exacting press corps and ultimately an informed electorate – to negotiate in good faith.” (131)
  4. The president once even tried to redefine “bipartisanship” as not measured by the amount of opposition party support or number of votes for a bill, but rather by the “ideas” contributed to a bill by the other party.
  5. Obama promised that passage of the PPACA would reduce overall healthcare expenditures. As reported by the AP, the plan will cost at least a trillion dollars over ten years.
  6. In order to make the plan “deficit neutral,” as meeting the PAYGO rule, the bill had to offset six years of “benefits” with ten years of taxes.
  7. Obama once vowed, “You will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime.”
  8. He also said, “I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”
  9. Another quote: “I will cut taxes – cut taxes – for 95 percent of all working families, because, in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.”
  10. In just one year under Obama, the Democrats passed nearly $700 billion in tax increases, including nearly $480 billion related to Obamacare.
  11. Obama, an admitted smoker who has failed to quit, passed a cigarette tax that would raise a projected $65 billion over ten years.
  12. As criticized by Jersey Shore quasi-star Snooki and Senator John McCain, Obama passed a 10% tax on UV tanning beds.
  13. The president passed a 40% excise tax on premium or “cadillac” health insurance plans.
  14. He also signed onto a 2.3% excise tax on certain medical devices, driving up their costs.
  15. When selling the Obamacare plan, the president assured seniors that their Medicare was safe. But Medicare’s chief actuary pointed out that parts A & B would be slashed by nearly one trillion dollars in the first ten years.
  16. The president also eliminated “deductions allocable to Medicare Part D,” costing those recipients $4.5 billion.
  17. Obama promised the passage of the PPACA would lower premiums. But even the CBO estimated that premiums would necessarily skyrocket. And they did.
  18. As relayed by the Heritage Foundation, “Another source of double-counted savings is the CLASS Act, which creates a new, federally run long-term care insurance program. Beneficiaries will begin paying premiums in 2011 but will not receive benefits for five years. This frontloads revenue and creates the illusion of $70 billion to pay for new spending under PPACA.”
  19. President Obama later dropped the long-term health insurance provision from the PPACA, once again targeting the elderly and the fragile with his cuts. More sensible would be phasing out such entitlements so people can plan ahead and provide for their own retirements.
  20. Obama and the Democrats even had the temerity to claim that Obamacare would reduce the deficit by $124 billion over ten years.
  21. It is a fact that President Obama has added more debt to the United States budget than all other presidents combined.
  22. According to a number of other news sources, the National Debt increased more than $5 trillion under Obama.
  23. Mr. Obama blamed the spending overrun on Bush’s unfunded wars and his tax cuts that were not “paid for.”
  24. Obama later signed on to extending the Bush tax cuts.
  25. In February 2009, Obama claimed he would cut the deficit in half.
  26. Under Obama, the Democrats never passed a budget, even though it is a core Congressional responsibility. Although Democrats blamed the Republicans for “obstructionism,” the Democrats had the majority in the House and the required super majority in the Senate to pass a budget over any opposition. A budget can even be passed using reconciliation, because of special rules. We are over 1,000 days without an official budget.
  27. Obama promised that under the PPACA, people would be able to retain their satisfactory plans.  Yet even advocates of the proposal conceded that part-time workers could be forced off of insurance plans until 2014.
  28. As reported by the Daily Caller: “President Obama promised small businesses that they would receive tax credits to help alleviate the large premium costs in the bill. The Small Business Tax Credit is supposed to be the primary tool for doing this. But not only is the tax credit uselessly small — the(CBO) estimates that it will only affect 12 percent of people in the small-group market — but it ends in 2017.”
  29. Obama also claimed that health care premiums would decline by “3000%.” He then went on to say that people should then get a raise.
  30. President Obama denied the existence of any “death panel” in Obamacare, otherwise referred to as “end of life planning.”
  31. The Americans for Tax Reform mentions a key provision in Obamacare called the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). Charged with controlling health care costs,  IPAB consists of 15 full-time members appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for six-year terms. Their goal is to reduce Medicare spending when the five-year outlook for the average growth rate in Medicare per beneficiary is projected to exceed target growth rates. IPAB is prohibited from “rationing” care, increasing taxes, changing Medicare benefits or eligibility, increasing beneficiary premiums and cost-sharing requirements, or reducing low-income subsidies under Medicare Part D.  With certain other limitations on spending, the 15-bureaucrat board may pull upon a variety of Medicare cuts, such as physician reimbursement rates under Medicare Part B.
  32. IPAB has been described by Republicans as a “death panel,” and the drafter of a bill referring to it in such stark terms, Phil Roe, was even able to garner the co-sponsorship of retiring liberal Senator Barney Frank.  As Roe explained, ““Basically, there’s a certain amount of money that’s allocated for Medicare spending each year. Once you hit that amount that’s been appropriated, this board, this bureaucratically appointed board, can then decide, not based on quality or need, but based on strictly cost.”
  33. Obamacare outlawed new construction of physician-owned hospitals, costing up to 25,000 new jobs.
  34. One bit of sleighthand the Democrats pulled was the so-called “doc fix,” which is the Sustainable Growth Formula used to link physician costs, Medicare enrollment, and GDP. The Obamacare plan led to major cuts across the board for Medicare payments, leading to more doctors refusing Medicare payments.
  35. Forty percent of doctors polled plan to leave their practices by the time Obamacare goes into effect in 2014.
  36. While selling Obamacare, the president said that the proposal would eliminate half a billion dollars in Medicare waste and fraud. Not only is this impossible, due to the way the figure was based on double-counting, but why would such waste and fraud be allowed to continue regardless of if Obamacare were passed?
  37. In a fleeting moment of honesty, Obama said, “The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings and inefficiencies [sic] to our health care system.”
  38. While Obama consistently cited the escalating healthcare costs as a reason for the PPACA, some of the highest in the Western world, he failed to mention that nearly half of all healthcare spending in the United States comes through the government.
  39. President Obama has golfed at least 92 times as president, far more than any other president in U.S. history.
  40. On April 9th, 2009 the president said, “We will not rest until we reach a day when not a single veteran falls into homelessness.”
  41. On May 11th, 2009 the president said, “I will not rest until the dream of health care reform is finally achieved in the United States of America.”
  42. On November 2nd, 2009 the president said, “We will not rest until we are succeeding in generating the jobs that this economy needs.”
  43. On November 23rd, 2009 the president said, “I will not rest until business are investing again, and businesses are hiring again.”
  44. On January 28, 2010 the president said, “We will not rest until we build an economy that’s ready for America’s future.”
  45. On March 5th, 2010 the president said, “I’m not gonna rest and my administration is not gonna rest in our efforts to help people who are looking to find a job.”
  46. On May 26th, 2010 the president said, “We will not rest until this well is shut, the environment is repaired and the clean up is complete.”
  47. On July 8th, 2010 the president said, “My administration will not rest until every American who is able and ready and willing to work can find a job.”
  48. Obama signed a bill for almost a billion dollars for homeless veterans at the end of 2011. Despite billions spent on programs to end homelessness that kept the rate nearly even, the Huffington Postconceded that homeless rates are ready to rise.
  49. As of April 2010, 1.2 million households had lost their homes under Obama. In 2010, there were 2.87 million foreclosures, a record-setting year that was 2% above 2009′s. Widely reported foreclosure projections for 2012 cite a possibility of ten millionmore this year.
  50. More than a third of Americans have “dropped out” of the middle class, according to traditional standards.
  51. The unemployment rate for age 20-24 is officially 14.4%, far above the 8.5% figure used in government statistics.
  52. If one factors in the labor participation rate, the jobless rate is around 11.4%.
  53. In 2010, CNN reported that already 8 million jobs had been destroyed, perhaps “forever.” Compare with the 52 weeks of job growth under President Bush after his tax cuts went into effect.
  54. Despite programs meant to put blacks and other minorities into houses, the levels of black home ownership are in free fall, due partly to surging unemployment.
  55. Black unemployment is double the level for whites under Obama at nearly 16%.
  56. The U.S.’ Gross Domestic Product continues to be anemic. Eleven out of fourteen quarters under Obama have been below two percent growth.
  57. While president Obama had consistently insisted that stimulus payments would go to “shovel ready” projects, he later reversed himself and claimed there were no such thing as “shovel ready” projects.
  58. Obama even joked about the deception, stating with a grin that “shovel-ready was not as shovel ready as we expected.”
  59. While on the campaign trail, Obama claimed he could halt the rise of the oceans.
  60. In 2012, “promise kept”: global sea levels have shown a significant drop, putting the lie to the Al Gore-led claims that manmade global warming would lead to widespread coastal flooding.
  61. As based onWashington Post reporting, Obama’s claim at his Selma speech that Kennedy’s generosity led indirectly to his birth, would imply that he was born in 1961 and not in 1965.
  62. Obama says in a speech that his father served in World War II. Since his father was only 9, and not yet a Marxist (as reported by Politico), Obama must have meant his grandfather, who did serve.
  63. Barack Obama stated on more than one occasion that his grandfather helped liberate Jews at Auschwitz.  The Russians liberated the Jews at Auschwitz.
  64. At a speech given in 2011, Obama said that Hawaii was a part of Asia.
  65. Obama once claimed the U.S. motto was E pluribus unum, or “out of many one.” The National Motto is actually “In God We Trust” — not E pluribus unum.
  66. Obama leaves “by their Creator” out of his citation of the Declaration of Independence at a Hispanic Caucus speech.
  67. When confronted by a girl about Obama’s favorite player on his beloved Chicago White Sox team, the president cannot name a single player.
  68. Obama once denied that he would use signing statements while in office, like Bush did. Of course, this was a lie.
  69. As reported by the NY Times, President Obama broke his campaign pledge regularly that all bills would be posted online before they would be voted on.
  70. It is unclear how many times Obama said, “Let me be clear.” But it is clearly dozens.
  71. Obama confessed that change had turned out to be “a lot tougher than expected” at a speech in San Francisco.
  72. Obama admitted that it was “not as trendy” in late 2011 to be a supporter as it was in 2008.
  73. Obama also admitted that Americans were not better off than they were four years ago.
  74. As recently reported by the AP, “And rarely has Obama’s rhetoric as president reached as high as the lofty promises of his campaign, when he pledged to change the very way Washington does business and remake politics itself. It’s a far cry from those promises of change to the ambition of meeting monthly with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders — but even that relatively modest goal, from Obama’s 2010 State of the Union, went unfulfilled.”
  75. Even the politically suspect Politifact evaluates Obama’s campaign pledge rate at 24%. Thus, three out of every four pledges were either baseless, naive, or lies.
  76. Under Obama, Americans’ fear of big government approached an all-time high. According to Gallup, citizens’ feared big government at a clip of 64%, more than big business at 26%, and big labor at 8%.
  77. Recent polling shows that far more Americans believe their country is heading in the wrong direction under Obama than at any time under Bush. Currently, 23% say America is heading in the “right” direction, and 71.2% believe we are going the wrong way – a 49 point gap. The widest negative spread under Bush was 34 points in November 2007.
  78. Those who “strongly approve” of Obama performance as president has dropped from 45% to 22% since Rasmussen began polling him. Those who “strongly disapprove” has skyrocketed from 14% to between 40% and 45%.
  79. As part of the president’s modernization vision for America, he proposed a $53 billion program for a high-speed railroad.
  80. President Obama said in 2011, “We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad.” Actually, it’s the Transcontinental Railroad.
  81. Obama is apparently unaware of Amtrak, which receives billions in government subsidies and is far short of passenger capacity.
  82. Plans to build a nationwide high-speed rail system are faltering. Claims that the program would create tens of thousands of jobs apparently neglect the “broken window fallacy” – overlooking the opportunity costs of doing so.
  83. While Obama was making a case for government-run healthcare, he said the following, “UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.”
  84. Indeed, because of the post office’s insolvency, it has attempted to make $3 billion in cost reductions. This has meant slashes in services.
  85. An ostensible act of terrorism carried out during the Obama administration, the Fort Hood shooting, was labeled an act of “workplace violence” by the administration. Major Hassan had yelled “Allahu Akhbar!” (Glory to Allah!) and gunned down dozens, killing thirteen.
  86. The military had diagnosed Major Hassan with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, although he had never been in combat (more accurately, Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder?). There were several red flags about his computer networking to al Qaeda sites, and possible unwillingness to fight a war on behalf of the United States. Such points raised questions in the mainstream media whether “political correctness” was going too far.
  87. Obama admitted about the Christmas Day bomber, “We failed to connect the dots.”
  88. Under Obama, the Transportation Security Administration developed new aggressive techniques to screen for “terrorists,” including full body or “naked” scanners and intensive groping hand-search techniques. As Representative Broun pointed out on CSPAN, these techniques often target children and elderly, and avoid Arab men, so as not to impinge on political correctness.
  89. In 2009, Obama officially ended the “global war on terror,” instead calling our excursions “overseas contingency operations.”
  90. Obama: “I said very early on, as a Senator and continue to believe, as a presidential candidate and now as president, that we can absorb a terrorist attack.” The full context can be read here.
  91. In an interview on ABC, Obama said, “What I was suggesting — you’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith…” George Stephanopoulos jumped in to correct Obama by saying “your Christian faith,” which Obama quickly clarified.
  92. Obama once claimed that: “As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam – at places like Al-Azhar – that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe ‘s Renaissance and Enlightenment.” So if the gates of ijtihad, or further enlightenment, had closed in Islam in the tenth century, how could such a religion lead to Enlightenment and Renaissance in Europe from the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries? Does Obama mean the rediscovering of Aristotelian texts preserved by Muslim scholars helped lead to the Renaissance and Enlightenment?
  93. Obama also said, “The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.”
  94. As the left-wing FactCheck.org cannot deny, Obama once said, “So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t.”
  95. As the USA Today related, Obama once said, “Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality.” This is obviously at odds with reality. Not only is Islam itself bigoted against women and homosexuals, Muslims once sold millions of blacks (and whites) into slavery.
  96. Obama also said, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation – at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.” Essentially, the United States was never officially a Christian nation, but this is not the sense Obama was using the phrase. What Obama implies is that America is no longer a place where just Christians live. But the United States was never that, so one is left to wonder what he is implying.
  97. President Obama once oddly remarked, “On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes – and I see many of them in the audience here today – our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.”
  98. Obama said about having spoken with all the living presidents as he prepared to take office, “I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing any seances.” Obama later called Nancy Reagan to apologize.
  99. Just one year into his administration, academics ranked Obama the fifteenth best president of all time. George W. Bush was thirty-ninth out of forty-three presidents.
  100. On 60 Minutes, Obama claimed that his accomplishments top all but three presidents: Lincoln, FDR, and Wilson.

This is the third in a ten part series. Continued here

FOR THE COMPLETE LIST OF 1001 REASONS CLICK HERE.

Kyle Becker blogs at RogueGovernment, and can be followed on Twitter as @RogueOperator1. He writes freelance for several publications, including American Thinker, Misfit Politics, and OwntheNarrative, and is a regular commentator on the late night talk shows at OTNN.

corrections:

#65 was clarified to show that Obama mistakenly stated that our national motto was E pluribus unum. The National Motto has been “In God We Trust” since the law’s passing.

Support Conservative Daily News with a small donation via Paypal or credit card that will go towards supporting the news and commentary you've come to appreciate.

Related Articles

Back to top button