I’ve been watching some friend’s posts on Facebook tonight following the President’s address to Congress related to his job act. They were mostly of the warm, fuzzy variety cheering him on. My hope is they take a look at some of the facts surrounding his presidency so far and not judge him solely on his speech making abilities, which are impressive. I encourage anyone who may read this to do just what I have done. Research the facts and make your voting decisions based on facts and performance not a warm, fuzzy feeling.
President Obama claimed he would reduce military involvement and wouldn’t spend money off the budget. He had a huge military budget supplement in his first year in office, failing on that promise. During President Bush’s term in office anti-war protests were rampant. When President Bush left office there were 33,000 troops in Afghanistan. By mid 2010, under President Obama, that number had grown to 91,000 plus more civilian contractors in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Those same contractor’s casualties were greater than US military personnel last year. In addition to ramping up involvement in Afghanistan he has drone attacked Pakistan, bombed Somalia, hinted at issues with Iran regarding a nuclear reactor that governments around the world agree is perfectly legal and threatened Eritrea. Eritrea? My question is where are the anti-war protestors now?
Then there is the issue of civil liberties. The ACLU gave President Obama a list of items it asked to be acted upon in his first 100 days in office. On issues like spying on Americans, monitoring of activists, terrorism watch lists, the Real ID Act and DNA databases, the administration has carried out none of the ACLU’s recommendations. Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU said, “Our hope a year ago was that the Obama administration would restore our nation’s long tradition of respect for privacy and the rule of law by rolling back the privacy-invading domestic security policies enacted by the Bush administration,”. “Unfortunately, many of those policies have not been reversed, and we now run the risk of seeing them become a permanent part of American life.” He promised to close Guantanamo Bay in his first year. It looks as though it will never close. He claimed his administration would protect whistle blowers and then detained Bradley Manning.
Then there is the issue of the execution/assassination of Anwar Awlaki without due process. Awlaki, an American citizen, is regarded by the government as a terrorist. A Department of Justice spokesman was quoted by the “Washington Post” as saying that Awlaki “should surrender to American authorities and return to the United States, where he will be held accountable for his actions.” He’s not been charged with any crimes, let alone indicted for any. Awlaki’s father, the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights have filed suit against President Obama, Leon Panetta and Robert Gates among others as defendants. The suit was filed on his behalf as the suit states “Awlaki is unable to file the lawsuit on his own because the U.S. government’s threats to kill him, as well as its prior unsuccessful attempts to do so, cause him to be in hiding and thus make it infeasible for him to assert his legal rights directly”. The Department of Justice has claimed the suit should be dismissed due to state secrets. If suit dismissal is allowed it will enable the President of the US to sentence Americans to death without due process. I certainly am not inclined to protect terrorists but I am very much in favor of protecting the Fifth Amendment and due process. So far, very little has been done to improve civil rights. Potentially much will be done to harm them.
Mr. Obama claims that Obama Care will reduce insurance costs. In 2006 Massachusetts instituted what is generally regarded by industry experts as the beta version of the plan. In March of 2010 insurance carriers in Massachusetts asked for approval of rate increase for businesses and individuals ranging from eight to thirty two percent. Beta tests usually show how things actually work.
President Obama passed a stimulus bill that is supposed to stimulate the economy. Some of the things in the bill include a $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film. $650 million for the digital TV convertor box coupon program. $448 million allotted for construction of the Homeland Security headquarters. $1 billion for the 2010 census which is expected to have a cost overrun of $3 million. $10 million is dedicated to inspecting canals in urban areas. $650 million has been set aside for wildfire management on forest service lands. $1.2 billion dollars is allocated for youth programs and an additional $100 million dollars is slated for reducing the hazards of lead based paint. I’d like to know how any of these things, especially reducing lead based paint hazards will improve our economy. This brings me to my real worry about our current administration.
My greatest concern regarding the current administration is President Obama’s legacy. My fear is that President Obama will not be remembered for being the first biracial president. I fear history won’t remember him as an incredibly articulate, gifted speaker. My concern is he will be remembered as the man who bankrupted America. President Obama promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. He has already quadrupled it. In his first three budgets, Obama borrowed nearly $5 trillion. Currently, the government is borrowing about 45 percent of everything that it spends. The government during the last three years has borrowed on average about $4 billion each day. That staggering sum is far in excess of the $1.6 billion per day borrowed during the eight-year tenure of George W. Bush, who until Obama entered office borrowed more money than any other president.
President Obama has embraced Keynesian economics. Huge deficits empower more federal hiring and more entitlements and our President has certainly done that. 100,000 new federal jobs and almost 50,000,000 new food stamp recipients can only lead to two things, bigger government and higher taxes.
It is said that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. I am afraid that the path we are on will create a situation in the US much like that in the European Union. Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal have huge national debts yet they have not had significant job creation, which is what Mr. Obama spoke about tonight. Stateside, Texas and Utah shine in new job creation in the last few years. Both states are regarded as having fewer governmental regulations than other states with more private sector jobs than government based. President Obama said that small business is key in promoting job development and I agree. Job development in a stagnant economy is vitally important but so is reducing the overreaching arms of government, entitlements and spending money we don’t have. At one point during his address Mr. Obama said something about simple math. Math is simple. When you go from borrowing 1.6 billion dollars a day to borrowing $4 billion a day it is time to break out the calculator and figure out a way to stop borrowing all that money.
