New Obama ad: More promises, more Bolshevik
Published by: Herman Cain on Thursday September 27th, 2012
It must be nice to be a candidate for office who can say absolutely anything, and can promise absolutely anything, without fear of serious media scrutiny. In other words, with an unlimited license to B.S., you might as well take advantage. And boy, does Barack Obama ever do that in his latest ad.
This two-minute barnburner is so shameless, you almost have to tip your hat to Obama and his campaign for having the temerity to put the damn thing on the air. Then again, why not? They're not going to get any scrutiny from the media "fact checkers," and they know it.
It's going to take some time and space to dissect this thing, so let's get into it. First, here's the ad:
Where to start? How about here:
1. Yes, we were in a full-blown recession when Obama took office, as he constantly reminds us. Sharp recessions are historically followed by sharp recoveries. Because so many jobs were lost, there is lots of room to regain them, and smart economic policies should give you robust economic growth and job creation. But we are not having that now, precisely because of Obama's policies. Three years after the recession officially ended, unemployment is still above 8 percent, and the real U6 unemployment rate that includes those underemployed or who have left the workforce is closer to 15 percent. We found out this morning that economic growth in the second quarter of this year was only 1.3 percent.
That is terrible!
This is not because of the recession of 2008 and 2009. That recession should have set the stage for a robust, full-blown recovery. We are not having that recovery, and Obama's policies are the reason.
2. We were not "mired in Iraq" in January 2009. As a result of the troop surge of 2007, we were wrapping up a victory in Iraq by 2009. By the time we ended combat operations shortly after Obama took office, we had won.
3. Tax cuts and reductions in regulation, which Obama calls "trickle down economics," are not what "got us in this mess in the first place." I detailed the real causes of the economic meltdown in this piece a few weeks back. But I also told you Obama would keep saying this, and he is.
4. Here's where it really gets rich, because at this point Obama simply starts making random promises he can't possibly back up. The first is that he is going to "create 1 million manufacturing jobs." Oh? How? Right now the entire economy is failing to produce 100,000 new jobs per month of any kind, let alone in manufacturing. Why should anyone think Obama knows how to create 1 million new manufacturing jobs? Just because he says so? I could announce that I have a "plan," and that part of my plan is to triple the salary your employer is paying you. Sounds great, doesn't it? How exactly would I do that? I have no idea. But all I have to do is promise it and get you to believe it.
Obama is not going to create 1 million manufacturing jobs. That is utter nonsense.
5. Help businesses double their export. Really? How is he going to do that? Are customers overseas going to suddenly start buying twice as much American stuff because Obama asks them very nicely? Obama could put more business-friendly policies in place, although that would be a pretty dramatic change from what he's done to date. But even if he did (and I haven't seen a single proposal yet from him that would qualify as business-friendly), there is no way he can say how much U.S. exports would increase, or if they would at all. This is a promise on which he knows he can't deliver. He just says it because it sounds good.
6. Cut oil exports in half? Is that right? By allowing drilling in the ANWR? By relaxing restrictions on drilling on other federal lands? By opening up the exploration of shale oil in the west? By ending restrictions on off-shore drilling? No, no, no, no. By ending his war on coal? By getting rid of restrictions on nuclear power? No. No. By dumping a bunch of taxpayer money into solar energy companies like Solyndra? Oh, wait, that didn't work. The fact is, we have enough oil, coal, natural gas and alternative energy resources right now to become completely energy-independent, and the reason we're not tapping these resources is the morass of federal restrictions that Obama refuses to lift. Cut oil exports on half. Right. Tell me another one.
7. Double the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks? Here's something fans of government should understand. There is a big difference between passing a law that says something must happen, and actually making it happen. Federal CAFE standards are mandating that cars and trucks achieve close to 50 miles per gallon in the near future. That doesn't mean the technology exists to make that happen, and the only way to develop and apply such technology will be a massive capital expenditure by the auto companies, which would drive prices sky high, or a massive federal subsidy. With the Chevy Volt, you have both. Sure, it runs on electricity, but it costs $40,000 to buy one and sales continually fall below projections. Even if you could get every other car to 50 MPG, what good would that do when it would cost so much to make the cars that no one can buy them? That's how empty this promise is.
8. We're going to have 100,000 new math and science teachers, are we? Is the federal government going to subsidize this? Because 100,000 teachers at a cost of $50,000 each per year costs $50 billion. Who's going to pay for that? Will local school districts just find money under rocks? Or does a federal government that's already running $1 trillion-plus deficits just figure, "Hey, we're going bankrupt anyway. Might as well!"
9. We're going to train 2 million Americans for new jobs? See the same questions I posed under Item 8.
10. “On top of the $1 trillion we’ve already cut, I’d ask the wealthy to pay a little more.”
Wait . . . what? The $1 trillion you’ve already cut? What $1 trillion would that be? Obama hasn’t cut any $1 trillion in spending! He’s done exactly the opposite of that!
My friends, let’s review.
When Obama took office in 2009, he immediately pushed an $862 billion so-called stimulus package through Congress. This pushed federal spending to more than $3.6 trillion, and to more than 25 percent of our gross domestic product for the first time since World War II. It was a huge spending increase!
But that was just the start. Having boosted 2009 spending with what he claimed was a one-time emergency measure, Obama and congressional Democrats simply kept spending at the same level in 2010, 2011 and 2012, but most people don’t know about it because they stopped passing budgets.
Cut a trillion dollars? Bolshevik! Obama hasn’t cut anything!
What he must be claiming is that his 10-year deficit reduction plan cuts $1 trillion in the so-called out years. That’s a promise he can’t keep because he will not be president in 10 years, and long-term budget cuts in the out years never happen!
11. This may be the best one. He said that after we end the war in Afghanistan, we're going to take the money we save, use half of it to pay down the debt and use the other half to "do some nation building here at home" (because of course we're spending so little now). OK. Let's run the numbers. The web site www.costofwar.com says the Afghanistan War has cost us $569 billion since it started. Let's be really generous to Obama and call it an even $1 trillion. Divide that by the 11 years the war has gone on, and the cost would average out to $90 billion a year.
The annual deficit is about $1.6 trillion. If you applied $45 billion to that, the deficit would be $1.55 trillion. You're not "paying down the debt" even a little. You're reducing your borrowing in such minuscule fashion you'd need a magnifying glass to see it on a pie chart. As for the half he wants to use for "nation building here at home," $45 billion won't even pay for all those teachers he promised.
This ad is such a load of crap, I can hardly come up with an English word to do it justice. In fact, I can't. I have to use a Russian one.
Bolshevik!
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