OutloudOpinion » Obama

Obama’s Green Energy Investments Continue to Fail 2.2.12

Investor's Business Daily — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:30:20 +0000

Industrial Policy: In recent days we learned sales of the Volt and Leaf cratered, President Obama’s failed green jobs program is under investigation, and another “clean energy” company’s in trouble. Green is the new red.

Each week, it seems, brings fresh evidence that the Obama administration’s obsession with so-called clean energy is an increasingly costly failure.

January car sales data out this week provided additional proof that consumers are turning their backs on electric cars, making President Obama’s pledge to get a million of them on the road in three years look even more ridiculous.

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Obama’s Misstatements on the Union 1.26.12

David Limbaugh — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:16:40 +0000

Only a president long shielded from criticism and accountability could make the kind of State of the Union speech President Obama did Tuesday night. It’s hard to know where to begin, given his repetition of tired ideas from his previous SOTUs, his taking credit for successful policies he resisted and omitting failed ones he promoted, his numerous misrepresentations on issues big and small, and his glaring refusal to address the main issues that threaten the nation.
Let me touch on just a few highlights in this brief space.
Excessive spending is the primary threat to our nation’s and Americans’ financial future, yet Obama glossed over it and distorted his record.
He said, “We’ve already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings. But we need to do more.” But everyone knows he’s had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the cutting table. His unrelenting passion is spending. Even The Washington Post said, “Obama does not mention that Republicans forced him to accept $2 trillion in budget cuts during the debt-ceiling impasse.”
Obama said, “I’m prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long-term costs of Medicare and Medicaid and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors.” Well, that’s mighty magnanimous of him, but why is he so grudging about it? As president, he should be singularly focused on entitlement reform. Yet he has obstructed and demagogued such reforms. His condition that the “programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors” is completely dishonest, because Paul Ryan’s plan did just that and he rejected it while ridiculing and demonizing Ryan.

Obama’s Big Six State of the Union Tax Myths 1.25.12

Investor's Business Daily — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:42:00 +0000

Taxes: If President Obama wants to create a fairer country, shouldn’t he start by fairly portraying our tax code? Instead, he used his State of the Union speech to peddle a number of blatant tax falsehoods.

In his speech, Obama repeatedly turned to the tax code to explain what’s wrong with the country. It favors the rich, he said. It benefits companies that send jobs abroad. It subsidizes the dirty old oil industry. It’s the cause of our deficit problem. And worst of all, plenty of people and businesses aren’t paying their “fair share.”

None of it is true.

But that hasn’t stopped Obama from repeating them every chance he gets, hoping that no one will notice or that his critics will get tired of correcting the record.

Since we don’t fall into either category, here are the facts behind Obama’s State of the Union tax deceptions.

• “We need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes.”

The claim that the rich don’t pay their fair share is simply untrue. The current tax code is extremely progressive, more progressive in fact than it was back in 1979, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

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Does Iowa Electoral Fraud Scam Lead To White House? 1.23.12

Investor's Business Daily — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:53:19 +0000

Election ‘12: In a scandal reeking of electoral fraud, a Democrat-linked political hack was arrested Friday for identity theft in an apparent bid to defame and replace Iowa’s GOP secretary of state. How far up does this go?

Zachary Edwards, who served as President Obama’s Iowa “New Media Director,” and a campaign organizer in critical battleground states such as North Carolina and New Mexico during 2008’s elections, apparently has quite a range of uses to the Democratic Party.

One of those uses may include identity theft.

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After 2008’s Hope and Change, It’s Sober and Sane for 2012 01.17.12

Gene Healy — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:56:43 +0000

Mitt Romney’s relentless rise continues as an InsiderAdvantage poll released Sunday has him 11 points ahead of his nearest rival in South Carolina.

The former Massachusetts governor looks likely to seal the deal in Saturday’s primary—dashing Tea Party hopes for a nominee who’s sincerely committed to smaller government.

Get ready for a “passionless presidential race,” Robert Reich warned recently on salon.com. Liberals will support President Obama “without enthusiasm,” conservatives will pull the lever for Romney only grudgingly, leaving the country “with two presidential candidates who don’t inspire—at the very time in American history when Americans crave inspiration.”

From OutloudOpinion – For Podcasts of IBDeditorials, The New Republic, and Over 30 Syndicated Columnists, go to www.outloudopinion.com

Businesses Need Relief From Obama, Not Gov’t Reorg 1.13.12

Investor's Business Daily — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:53:49 +0000

Business: After pushing through one of the largest expansions of government in history, the president now claims he wants to streamline it on behalf of struggling businesses. Pardon us if we’re skeptical about his sincerity.

On Friday, Obama pushed Congress to give him the authority to reorganize several government agencies, merging six that deal with trade and business development. The idea, he claims, is to cut duplication and red tape to make it “easier to do business in America.” As a bonus, Obama says this will trim spending by $3 billion over a decade.

Obama’s sudden realization that the federal government is a bloated mess is welcome. There’s no shortage of targets at which to aim. But his proposal should be seen for what it is: a crass political move designed to inoculate himself against charges that he’s anti-business.

After all, if these reforms are so important to companies, why did Obama wait three years to propose them, or wait a full year after promising such changes in his last State of the Union address, knowing Congress would never get it done in an election year?

It’s just as well, since once you scratch the surface, you realize Obama’s reorg would almost certainly do more harm than good. Of particular concern is his plan to mash the lean and effective U.S. Trade Representative office together with the bloated and aimless Commerce Department.

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Hugo Chavez’s Lawless Venezuela Grows More Lawless 1.9.12

Investor's Business Daily — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:36:00 +0000

The Americas: With U.S. attention focused elsewhere, Venezuela’s dictator is at it again — breaking contracts, pushing drugs, plotting cyberattacks and cavorting with Iran’s tyrant. This is what appeasement brings.

Well before President Obama gave President Hugo Chavez a handshake at a 2009 summit, wiser heads at the State Department warned him against a “reset.” Obama ignored them.

The rube-like naivete has now come to bite Obama as the craziness in Caracas spirals wildly in just the last few days. The Rumsfeld Maxim that “weakness is provocative” seems to be operative here, setting the stage for the astonishing string of lawless acts that now demand hard sanctions. Among them:

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Obama’s Recess Appointments: An Impeachable Offense? 1.5.12

Investor's Business Daily — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 04:46:09 +0000

Constitution: President Obama’s nonrecess “recess appointments” can’t be excused as over-the-top electioneering. This president has crossed over from socialistic extremism into lawlessness and, perhaps, impeachability.

The U.S. Constitution established a strong presidency — so strong that even one of the most esteemed founding fathers, Patrick Henry, worried it would be kinglike. But this week saw a president exceed even those broad constitutional powers because doing so fits his election-year narrative of a “do-nothing Congress” so well.

Now we have the makings of a banana republic, where the rule of clearly written constitutional law is compromised by a ruler’s subjective whim.

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White House Calls GOP Extreme; Record Says Otherwise 1.5.12

Investor's Business Daily — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 04:11:03 +0000

Election ‘12: The White House responded to the Republican Iowa results by claiming that no matter who won, the extremists were the victors. Does the administration really want to run for re-election on that theme?

While the media were busy trying to tell the public that Mitt Romney’s win Tuesday was actually a loss, the administration teed up another narrative for the press to carry.

President Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, with no regard to reality claimed that the “extremist Tea Party agenda won a clear victory.”

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Obama’s Flawed Exit Strategy for Iraq 01.04.12

Sheldon Richman — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:23:01 +0000

In his official remarks about the end of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, President Obama told an assembly of troops:

The war in Iraq will soon belong to history. Your service belongs to the ages. Never forget that you are part of an unbroken line of heroes spanning two centuries—from the colonists who overthrew an empire, to your grandparents and parents who faced down fascism and communism, to you—men and women who fought for the same principles in Fallujah and Kandahar, and delivered justice to those who attacked us on 9/11.

You’d never know that a signature of Obama’s 2008 campaign was his assertion that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a terrible mistake. (Actually, it was a crime, but let that go.) This was the main way he sought to distinguish himself as a candidate from his rival, Hillary Clinton, who had voted to authorize George W. Bush to use force against the Iraqi people on the thinnest of pretexts. True, you didn’t have to scratch very deep before discovering a waffle: At one point in 2008, Obama said he didn’t know how he would have voted on the authorization of force had he been in the Senate at the time.

From OutloudOpinion – For Podcasts of IBDeditorials, The New Republic, and Over 30 Syndicated Columnists, go to www.outloudopinion.com