Campaign Speech At Knox College

So yesterday the President went to Knox College in Illinois to begin his new campaign of selling the American people on what a great job he’s been doing.  It’s what he does.  Instead of being in Washington leading the nation, something he lacks the ability to do, he goes around the country (spending taxpayer dollars) on an “Ain’t I Great” campaign.  In  a speech that lasted over an hour he mostly repeated old “None of it is my fault” mantra…  again.  I’ve copied some of the transcript of the speech that I found interesting.  It’s amazing how the man can lie to people’s faces and they applaud him for it.  Let’s break some of them down.

“Now, today, five years after the start of that Great Recession, America has fought its way back. We've fought our way back.  Together we saved the auto industry, took on a broken health care system.   We invested in new American technologies to reverse our addiction to foreign oil. We doubled wind and solar power.”

America hasn’t “fought its way back.”  It’s in one of the slowest growth periods in history.  Unemployment has fallen mostly because people quit looking for work and have dropped out of the labor force.  The Obama administration says unemployment is at 7.9% but in reality it’s more like 15% with millions now on welfare and food stamps.

Saved the auto industry?  When the government took over Chrysler and General Motors they restructured them, did away with brands like Pontiac and Saturn, screwed the stockholders and gave a bunch of money to the United Auto Workers union.  During the 2012 election the President was saying that GM had paid back all the money they were loaned – which was simply another lie.  I don’t know if it’s been paid back even today.

Took on a broken health care system.  And made it even worse.  Insurance costs are going up.  Doctors are retiring and/or refusing to see Medicare patients because the government doesn’t want to pay them anymore.  Employers, particularly small businesses, have stopped hiring because of government mandated insurance requirements.  Even the Obama administration knows how bad it is.  That’s why they have suspended implementation of several portions of it until after the 2014 elections are over. 

And “We invested in new American technologies to reverse our addiction to foreign oil. We doubled wind and solar power.”  About that...  He neglected to mention that about 90% of the green energy companies that we “invested in” have gone bankrupt and the taxpayers are out billions of dollars.  Just a little tidbit of information that he doesn’t like to talk about.

“Together we put in place tough new rules on big banks and protections to crack down on the worst practices of mortgage lenders and credit card companies.  We changed a tax code too skewed in favor of the wealthiest at the expense of working families.  So we changed that.  We locked in tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans, and we asked those at the top to pay a little bit more.”

How many big bankers have been prosecuted?  The mortgage crisis was initiated by Democrats under Clinton when mortgage companies were forced by the Clinton administration to give loans to people who didn’t really qualify for them.  Bush tried to investigate it and good pals Barney Frank and Chris Dodd told Bush everything was fine – right up until the housing bubble burst.  But that’s one of those inconvenient facts that the President doesn’t like to talk about.

He locked tax cuts in place – very reluctantly and against loud opposition from Democrats in Washington, who believe everyone with an income should pay more taxes...  except them, of course.  Then he appeased his base somewhat by forcing the wealthy to pay more in taxes.  Ever playing the class warfare game, he demonized the wealthy to the great delight of his supporters – even though he and 98% of our elected officials are in the wealthy category.  They cheered him all the way to the bank.

“And if you ask some of these folks, some of these folks mostly in the House, about their economic agenda, how it is that they'll strengthen the middle class, they'll shift the topic to out-of-control government spending, despite the fact that we've cut the deficit by nearly half as a share of the economy since I took office.”

If you ask Republicans what the biggest problem is with the economy they’ll tell you out of control government spending.  That is true.  And the Obama administration (and most Democrats) feel that the government can’t spend too much.  All they need is for more people to give them more money.  And I’d certainly be interested in finding out which deficit was cut by nearly half.  That’s an interesting theory – with no substance.

“Or they'll talk about government assistance for the poor, despite the fact that they've already cut early education for vulnerable kids, they've already cut insurance for people who've lost their jobs through no fault of their own.  Or they'll bring up "Obamacare" -- this is tried and true -- despite the fact that our businesses have created nearly twice as many jobs in this recovery as businesses had at the same point in the last recovery, when there was no "Obamacare."”

This might be the best one of them all.  No one has cut early education for kids.  As for “insurance for people who’ve lost their jobs through no fault of their own” I’m guessing he’s talking about unemployment benefits.  The President seems to think that unemployment should be a career choice.  Unemployment was never meant to last forever.  But under this President it apparently can last 8 years…

“Our businesses have created nearly twice as many jobs in this recovery as businesses had at the same point in the last recovery, when there was no "Obamacare."”  What, exactly, is he trying to say here?  That Obamacare is responsible for creating small business jobs?  The only jobs created by Obamacare are at the IRS.  As I said before – small businesses (with less than 50 full time employees) won’t hire more because if they go over 50 they have to either provide health insurance or pay fines if they don’t.  So those with less than 50 won’t go over that number and those with more than 50 are cutting hours back to part-time so they won’t be bound by the mandates.  Obamacare was set to destroy jobs – so what did he do?  He postponed the mandate for employers until after the 2014 election so as not to have more and more people unemployed or underemployed next November.  He knows Obamacare is a disaster.  He simply cannot admit it because he can’t admit he failed.

The President also likes to pretend that another cause of our economic woes is that Republicans are focused on the “phony scandals” that are in the news these days.  In President Obama’s world, four dead Americans, an incredible bumbling of the incident response by his administration and a massive cover-up by the State Department and the White House is a “phony scandal.”  The IRS breaking the law by targeting conservative groups for higher scrutiny (admitted by the IRS) is a “phony scandal.”  Gun running and a dead Border Patrol agent in the Fast and Furious operation is a “phony scandal.”   The National Security Agency collecting and storing cell phone and e-mail data on all Americans is a “phony scandal.”  If all of these things are phony I’d sure hate to see what a real one looks like!

President Obama has done nothing but campaign for the entire 4½ years he’s been in office.  Maybe one day he’ll decide to govern or to lead.  Wait - what am I saying?  That might make him less popular…!