Following are some of President Obama's more dubious pronouncements from his 100-day news conference.
OBAMA: "We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs."
FACTS: Over 1.2 million jobs have been lost since the beginning of Obama's presidency, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In March, 2009, 663,000 jobs were lost. And by including "saved" jobs in his calculations (if he even has any calculations), Obama can make any wild claim about job creation that he wishes, because "saved" jobs can neither be proven nor disproven.
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OBAMA: "Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit….That wasn't me."
FACTS: Congress controls the federal purse strings, and Democrats controlled Congress for that $1.3 trillion deficit. Obama was a member of that Congress, and Obama voted FOR all the deficit spending. It WAS him who created the deficit, along with Congressional Democrats and former President Bush, who signed the spending legislation into law.
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OBAMA: "I think one basic principle that we know is that the more we do on the (disease) prevention side, the more we can obtain serious savings down the road. … If we're making those investments, we will save huge amounts of money in the long term."
FACTS: In 2008, the New England Journal of Medicine warned that "sweeping statements about the cost-saving potential of prevention, however, are overreaching," and that "although some preventive measures do save money, the vast majority reviewed in the health economics literature do not." A study released in December by the Congressional Budget Office found that increasing preventive care "could improve people's health but would probably generate either modest reductions in the overall costs of health care or increases in such spending within a 10-year budgetary time frame."
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OBAMA: "You could cut [Social Security] benefits. You could raise the tax on everybody so everybody's payroll tax goes up a little bit. Or you can do what I think is probably the best solution, which is you can raise the cap on the payroll tax."
FACTS: Obama's plan is to lift the SS cap for those making over $250,000 per year. The Tax Policy Center says Obama's proposal would reduce the Social Security trust fund's deficit by less than half, but I don't think even that is accurate. Let's not forget that Congress spends all excess SS revenue, and then writes IOU's back to the imaginary SS Trust Fund in the form of Treasury bonds. Those bonds have to be redeemed later and someone (taxpayers) has to pay for them (again, because Congress spent the Trust Fund the first time). Because our SS system is so perverted, the more excess SS revenue there is, the more that has to redeemed (paid back via taxation) later. Obama's SS plan will reduce the federal deficit with the extra incoming payroll taxes, but it will actually make the SS Trust Fund hole even deeper, unless Obama just eliminates the entire phony SS Trust Fund concept and merges SS in completely with the general fund, which would be more honest that what is being done now.
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OBAMA: "My hope is that working in a bipartisan fashion we are going to be able to get a health care reform bill on my desk before the end of the year that we'll start seeing in the kinds of investments that will make everybody healthier."
FACTS: The Democrats are taking measures to overcome any Republican opposition on the health care bill. In the budget Congress passed last wednesday, Democrats have the option to deny Republicans the right to filibuster, which is the normal way the minority party uses to remove objectionable provisions from a bill. The inclusion of this provision, along with the 60-vote Democratic supermajority, paves the way for the Democrats to pass a health care bill without ANY Republican votes. The Dems have taken steps to insure that bipartisanship on the health care bill will not be required.
And btw, Obama's health care bill won't be an "investment," as Obama claims. It will be a "cost to taxpayers." The question will be, is the cost worth it ? We'll see.
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OBAMA: "I've personally asked the leadership in Congress to pass into law rules that follow the simple principle: You pay for what you spend, so that government acts the same way any responsible family does."
Coming from a spendthrift president who in only 100 days has put America on a path to more deficits and debt than all other presidential administrations in American history COMBINED, this statement from Obama makes me want to go medieval on his arse. But if Obama really wants a rule passed that will require Congress to pay for what it spends, I have good news for our President. That rule is ALREADY ON THE BOOKS. It's called PAYGO and it was enacted in January 2007. The Democrats have ignored it ever since.
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OBAMA: "I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, 'We don't torture' "
FACTS: It appears Obama might have made this up, or else the article Obama was reading was a fabrication (maybe it came from the NY Times. That would explain things.) The historian at the Churchill Centre could not find any quotes about Churchill not torturing terrorists or Nazis, and, in fact, Churchill DID torture Nazis. Churchill's daughter said Winston would have done anything to win the war (for reasons obvious to everybody but liberals, who wouldn't have cared if the Nazis had won as long as we were nice to the Nazis, thus proving how morally superior we were to our new Nazi masters).
OBAMA: "I also campaigned on the promise that I would change the direction of our nation's foreign policy. And we've begun to do that as well. We've begun to end the war in Iraq."
FACTS: Sorry Barry, but it was President Bush who put the Status Of Forces Agreement in place that set a timetable for the removal of our troops from Iraq, not you. You only fiddled a bit around the edges to make it look like you did something.
OBAMA: "We'll continue scouring the federal budget for savings and target more programs for elimination."
FACTS: Obama will "continue" scouring the federal budget ? How can you "continue" something you haven't started ? He hasn't scoured the budget for jack squat so far, and he hasn't eliminated any significant programs either. He has saved $100 million total, while spending trillions. Great job, BO. You're a regular taxpayer hero.
I guess that's enough for now. This is getting pretty long.
