Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Obama's Press Conference was Full of Inaccuracies (and an outright lie or two)

Obama gave his first press conference in 3 months due to pressure from his own party to get involved in the debt ceiling issue.  His performance illustrates why he doesn't like giving them too often.  It really does put his mucked up view of the world out there for all to see.  Here are some statements which I had issue with (the official transcript wasn't available as I'm writing so I am getting quotes from here and here).:

"We have to tackle spending in our tax code." - Talk about Orwellian logic.  Taxes are revenues and expenses are spending, not the other way around.  The only way his statement makes sense logically is if he assumes that all income in the United States (both individual and corporate) is the property of the United States Government so when they allow you to keep more, it's an expense.  That would be extremely scary if he thought that.  Maybe those people who think he is a Manchurian candidate have a point.

"I spent the last two years cutting taxes for ordinary Americans." - Actually no.  He spent much of his tenure trying to ram through his healthcare reform package which seems to increase taxes on ordinary Americans (government representatives have been arguing in court that his individual mandate penalty is a tax despite what he argued with George Stephanopoulos).  And I believe he only extended the Bush tax cuts under duress.

"The tax cuts I am suggesting are for millionaires and billionaires, for oil companies and hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners." - So the tax increases are only for millionaires and billionaires (I'm assuming he meant closing the tax cuts on millionaires and billionaires or it was just a transcription error, I don't remember what he said when I was watching)?  How many of those does he think are out there.  The cutoff for the top 1% of adjusted gross income is $380k, so if he is just looking to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires then he is only going to raise taxes on a fraction of 1% of Americans.  Somehow I doubt that as even with a large tax rate increase there would not be meaningful revenue derived from them.  My guess is that the people that will be affected will include many small business owners.  Last I checked, they tended not to have corporate jets.

"I've been willing to say we need to see where we can reduce the cost of healthcare spending and medicare and medicaid, not by shifting the cost to the elderly." - So I guess that means he is for "death panels"?  I don't see what choices you have other than restricting use or cost shifting to users, especially after he already made cuts to finance Obamacare.  Plus, doctors and hospitals are already losing money on every medicare or medicaid patient they see, so I don't think they can cut reimbursement to providers again.  Well okay, they can try, but that will just further limit the number of doctors accepting patients with government funded healthcare.

"You can't reduce the deficit to levels that need to be reduced without revenue in the mix." - Why?  Government spending has increased 28% since 2008.  If you simply bring us back to those levels, you'll have cut the deficit pretty much in half.  Also, you can increase revenue without raising tax rates.  You can actually grow the economy.  Why doesn't he focus on some pro-growth policies for a change?

"If we do not have revenues, that means that there are a bunch of kids out there that aren't getting college scholarships."
- Won't someone please think about the children, uhh, I mean teenagers bordering on adulthood?  You know you can choose what you spend money on.  Somehow I'm going to bet that we can cut spending without pushing grannie over a cliff or forcing junior into the mines.

"Companies need the freedom to relocate, and they also need to follow the law." (referring to the Boeing/NLRB kerfuffle) - Is it illegal now to open a new plant in South Carolina?  How?

"What defies common sense is the notion that we would be shutting down a plant because workers and management can't come to an agreement." - No, we would be shutting down a plant because the people you put on the NLRB wanted it shut down.  It's not like Boeing was shutting down their Seattle plant, they were still going to use it, they just built another one in another state.  Why are workers in Washington considered more important by your regulatory agencies than those in South Carolina?

"Are we really going to start paying interest to Chinese and not pay people their Social Security checks?" - Isn't that racist or something?  I have to think that if Bush had said it there would be a major issue there.  What percentage of the Federal debt is owned by China.  China owns about 7% of the total debt.  The majority is owned by domestic institutions, so not paying actually hurts us more than any other country.  Plus, guess where the elderly have always been told to stick their money?  Fixed income funds.  You don't pay the interest, they are going to be the population most impacted.  Also, if Obama is so worried about grannie, maybe he can get the Democrats to cave to the GOP on the tax increases?  What is more important, punishing the rich or making sure social security checks go out?  My guess is he would love the talks to break down as he believes the GOP would be blamed and he would get re-elected.  That could be why he isn't trying too hard.

"We know what to do. We know that if we are educating our kids well we will be more competitive. We know if we invest in infrastructure it will pay off." -  Last I checked public schools were locally funded so that is once again the equivalent of screaming "won't someone please think about the children".  And how did the infrastructure spending in the stimulus bill pay off?  Anyone?

"I've been here. I've been doing Afghanistan and bin Laden and the Greek crisis and — you stay here. Let's get it done." - I'm sorry, so Obama was too BUSY to negotiate over the debt limit?  Is that why he is too BUSY to even submit a budget proposal?  Bin Laden was almost two months ago so I don't think you can really bring that up seriously.  Also, it wasn't like Obama jumped from a plane and strangled him himself.  He watched it on TV at home.  I guess he did have to get Afghanistan in there to placate his base in time for the elections but does it really take that long to completely ignore the recommendations of all your generals? And the Greek crisis?  I guess the Greek budget is more important than our own?  Also, isn't this Europe's responsibility?  He is so lame.

Seriously, I get the feeling he wants a US default so he can find someone else to blame for the mess we are in.  I'm sure much of the mainstream media will take the bait but he IS the President.  The final responsibility will always be his.  "The Republicans ate my homework" may not work.

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