The Audacity of Obama

"...we're not campaigning any more. The election is over...."

Truer words were never spoken. Also fitting that it comes during a so-called bipartisan meeting. Just as promises of bipartisanship during the campaign were lies, so were so many other things. Of course, the campaign is over, so apparently those promises no longer mean anything, but just as a reminder, here are a few:

(List of promises compiled by John Stossel of FOX Business and FOX News, but quoted on several sites, including PolitiFact.


Promise #1: Cutting spending
On the campaign trail, Obama promised to cut spending several times. In the second presidential debate, he said that "actually, I am cutting more than I'm spending. So it will be a net spending cut." In the third debate, he reiterated: "what I've done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut." Of course, Republicans made claims like that, too. Bush Sr. is famous for his "Read my lips. No new taxes" line. Bush Jr. made statements like "Prosperity requires restraining the spending appetite of the federal government."


Reality:
Under both parties, government's appetite grows. But the line rises sharply after Obama took office. Spending increased 2 TRILLION dollars -- more than any year in history.


Promise #2: Putting bills online
Obama promised "When there's a bill that ends up on my desk as President, you the public will have five days to look online, and find out what's in it before I sign it."


Reality:
He broke that promise when he singed his first bill, the Fair Pay Act. He's broken it since, for instance on the Credit Card Bill of Rights and an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program.


Promise #3: Health care negotiations will be on C-SPAN
Obama promised at least eight times that "we're going to do all the negotiations on C-SPAN, So the American people will be able to watch."


Reality:
They haven't been there. Well, briefly. C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb said, "The only time we've been allowed to cover the White House part of it was one hour inside the East Room, which was kind of just a show horse type of thing."


Promise #4: I Won't Force Americans To Buy Insurance
During the campaign, Obama attacked Hillary Clinton: "She believes we have to force people who don't have insurance," he said in a primary debate in January 2008. In a Feb. 2008 CNN interview, he added: "If a mandate was the solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating that everybody buy a house."


Reality:
This September, he told Congress: "Under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance."


Promise #5: Ban Earmarks
"We are going to ban all earmarks," Obama said at a press conference on January 6, 2009.


Reality:
The first spending bill he signed had over 9,000 earmarks.


Promise #6: No Tax Increase on Families Making Under 250k
"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," Obama said in a September 2008 town hall meeting in Dover.
Reality:
In his first year in office, he proposed Cap and Trade, which would be a fat tax on everyone. He increased the cigarette tax by 159 percent, and now we have that proposed tax on fancy health care benefits.


During the campaign, he criticized John McCain for just suggesting that. "My opponent can't make that pledge [not to raise taxes] and here's why: for the first time in American history, John McCain wants to tax your health care benefits," he said in the same speech.


But now it's Obama who wants to tax health plans:


"This reform will charge insurance companies a fee for their most expensive policies," he said in his health care address to Congress.

I know its easy and popular to attack the whole "Hope and Change" express, but really, I don't think even his supporters (the few honest ones that he has left) believe that anymore. What I'm talking about is the unbridled arrogance and hubris that the Obama/Reid/Pelosi hegemony are inflicting on the country. Mister Obama is an inexperienced socialist product of the Chicago machine, and his presidency is the biggest political disaster we've faced since... we were a nation. His disrespect for the people he is supposed to represent is matched only by his arrogance that says he doesn't have to care about promises and lies. Does he think we're stupid, or does he just think he's above the need to be honest with WE THE PEOPLE. I think it's arrogance. That is, among other things, a result of the broken system of government that permits rich, corrupt lawyers to run forever, supported by labor unions and corporations that are ruining the country. The only way to fix the system is a constitutional amendment that imposes term limits on anyone in the federal government, and restricts spending in national elections, or ads related to national elections (including house and senate seats) to money collected by taxpayers, administered by a bipartisan commission that is only allowed to serve for four years. That is the only way to remove corrupt, entrenched liars like Obama/Reid/Pelosi from office.

And we've got (at least) two more years to go. Great.