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In years to come, these words will aptly describe the one-term Obama Administration.
Take a step back and look at what this administration is doing: nationalizing car companies, banks, and insurance companies; giving unprecedented powers to the Fed; abandoning our Eastern European allies to the wiles of a newly-invigorated Russia; promoting “environmentalism” at the expense of the poor; and now attempting to nationalize health care to mimic mediocre health care systems.
And further, he is acting utterly unpresidential and, really, unprofessional. He doesn’t know how one is to govern; he merely knows how to run for office and act like a political hack.
My memory may be hazy, but I do not remember President Bush ever calling his opponents liars in his speeches or radio addresses, let alone addresses to a joint session of Congress. While one may disagree with the man (as I did on many counts), he still had the respect for the office that you do not find in President Obama. It is unbecoming of a president to descend to such levels. Or to attribute ulterior motives or call protestors “un-American” and de-legitimize their right to free speech and assembly because these protestors happen to disagree with you.
One thing you will not find is a time when President Bush said such things about Code Pink, Cindy Sheehan, or similar groups that actually did act quite nastily. But neither President Bush nor his spokesmen called them “un-American,” but bent over backwards to state their support the protestors’ First Amendment rights.
It would be one thing if President Obama stopped at that point. Calling them liars is one thing, but to compound that by continuing to deceive the American people, he is insulting the American intelligence.
First of all, neither extreme is right on the question of whether abortions will be funded and illegal immigrants will receive coverage under the proposed health care plan. There is no certainty that they will be, but the ambiguity means that it is a distinct possibility contrary to what President Obama claims. The legislation currently leaves these decisions up to agencies established, but, considering the stance of the Obama Administration, it seems likely that at the end of the day, abortions will be funded and illegal immigrants will be covered.
It is one thing to make arguments in favor of such, because they can be made, but it is deception when there is no explicit language in the bill to prohibit it, and especially given the fact that amendments to explicitly state that abortion and coverage for illegal immigrants will not be funded were voted done every time they were introduced in committee.
In fact, the day after President Obama’s speech, the Senate Finance Committee convened to consider the issue of illegal immigrants receiving coverage under the bill. If it were expressly prohibited as President Obama claims, then why would the meeting be necessary?
President Obama needs to quit disgracing the office of president and to start being honest with the American people or else he is deserving of the same fate as the “wretch” so Scott describes.
Tonight I am going to pray very deeply for the innocent people of Central Europe and ask everyone who reads this to do the same. It's only a matter of time before Russia starts launching nukes at Warsaw and Prague, having previously been deterred from starting WWIII only by Bush's plans to build a missile defense system that really might work someday!
It's simple Anthony: Obama doesn't have a clue what he is doing. He's the most inexperienced president in recent history.
Joe – 10 missile interceptors wouldn't prevent a missile attack on Eastern Europe. Plus, it "might" not stop any of the missiles. It is silly to think that there is an imminent chance of Russia "launching nukes at Warsaw and Prague." Let's be realistic.
Mr. Dent: Really? "Disgracing the office of the president." You are letting your emotions overwhelm your article. I don't think you can argue that there have not been blatant distortions and, yes, lies about health care reform coming from the right. I think Obama should be calling these people out. When members of Congress are peddling "death panels" and the like, Obama is not "disgracing" the office of the president, he is pushing an honest debate. You should too. And when did he call them "un-American?" As Sarah Palin said: "Stop making stuff up." I think it's grossly irresponsible and "unprofessional" for elected officials to be making wild, false claims solely to kill health care reform. Honestly, at this point in time, Republicans don't want health care reform to pass. It will be a huge political win for Obama.
Abortions covered: you're right. There is ambiguity. But, I think that the Hyde amendment does a sufficient job of blocking federal dollars going to abortions. Remember, though, that many private insurance companies cover reproductive services. Your premiums are likely helping fund abortions right now.
Illegal immigrants: The real question is: how do you check to make sure people are actually citizens? National ID cards? Self-reports (laugh)? Pawlenty had trouble answering this question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGQw1LNv5Og
You attack "environmentalism" as hurting the poor because you don't understand it. Our current petrol-based economy hurts the poor. Don't you think it's kind of strange that many coal-based power plants, polluting industries etc. are located near the poorest communities? Companies do that because the poor can't defend themselves. Their health suffers because of the way the system is currently set up. And as much as you may deny it, clean energy = new jobs. Lots of them. And new industries, new technologies, and an expanded manufacturing sector. Refer to the CBO report on the cap & trade bill for the initial cost to American citizens. Why does climate change have to be a partisan thing? Embrace science.
First of all, I am not Mr. Pattishall.
Did you fail to read my post again? The most significant lie that has been peddled by the right is that of "death panels." Do you not agree? Another lie is that the public option is a "government take-over" of health care. That was debunked by a CBO report on HR3200. Yet another: health care reform will lead to rationing of care. While true, the right presents this as though it doesn't already occur. The "kill grandma" thing was by far the worst… a grotesque demonstration of fear tactics.
I did not concede anything other than what I wrote. There's ambiguity with abortion coverage. I believe that the Hyde Amendment will be sufficient to protect taxpayer dollars from funding abortions. And I think both Democrats and Republicans are committed to ensuring that that is the case. However, because there is not ONE bill out there, there is ambiguity. The bills have different language on the issue and, although Nancy Pelosi has asked for even stricter language banning public funding of abortions, it hasn't materialized yet. I am quite certain it will though.
I don't know what you think I conceded with illegal immigration, but it's a flat-out lie that HR3200 and other bills would allow illegal immigrants to receive the benefits of health care reform. There is clear language stating that they would NOT. My point is not whether it's OK if it's implemented, but HOW do you implement it? That is where the debate should go. The right makes the public think Dems want illegal immigrants to be included in health care reform, which is simply untrue.
Once again, on clean energy, you don't understand or you're simply reading too much TownHall. You write as though subsidizing green jobs is the devil. What is particularly wrong with subsidizing alternative energy just as we subsidize coal, corn, etc? Is it because it's a liberal thing? Green job growth between 1998 and 2007 was 9.1% — about 2.5 times higher than any other sector:
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/stud…
"Clean energy=new jobs is perhaps the most fallacious axiom in the modern era."
That's right, clean energy = new jobs and continues to = new jobs in the PRIVATE sector.
"How do you make these new jobs?"
For being Mr. Economics, I am surprised that you would even ask this question. The answer: the same way you can help create jobs in every other sector: incentives. We should be flooding the the clean energy sector with subsidies and other economic incentives. If you need a real-world example of how "incentives" work, you should really look into this government program they had recently… umm, what was it? Oh, cash-for-clunkers. Yeah, GM alone had to hire 1350 more workers to deal with the increased demand…
So, are you advocating the revocation of all subsidies? Or the end to all taxes? Come on Dent. Let's be realistic. The U.S. government has — through Democratic and Republican administrations & supported by liberal and conservative economists — been the little boy in the parable. The government has long used tax payer money to subsidize and pay for myriad things. Not everything benefits an individual taxpayer, but that is the price one pays to live in a democratic society.
However, I'm glad you raised that point because I think that never has there been a sector of our economy that could destroy that theory than alternative energy. I'm going to ignore your climate skepticism and argue that subsidizing clean energy would have the following benefits that would outweight the costs to everyone:
Health benefits: In 2001, the Bush Administration did a cost/benefit analysis of the EPA and (surprisingly to them) found that its benefits outweighed its costs by millions. You see, a cleaner environment reduces health care costs by millions of dollars. That means the tax payer shells out less for Medicare, Medicaid, and those lovely emergency visits for asthma attacks. A switch to clean energy in the country promises a cleaner environment.
Environmental benefits: By reducing pollution, we are protecting the flora and fauna that maintain our entire ecosystem. Further (and this has been successfully argued in environmental court cases), protecting flora and fauna is important because any one of them could be of future medicinal value unknown to us at the present time. Maintaining plants and animals is therefore of great value to the American people for maintaining our ecosystem and the possible benefits we can extract from flora and fauna.
Catastrophic climate change: Believe it or not, the vast majority of scientists believe that if we do not curtail our CO2 emissions, we will ALL deal with catastrophic consequences such as heat waves, famine, plague, extreme weather, and rising sea levels (goodbye coasts). Assuming scientists are correct (and I hope you do), simply subsidizing the alternative energy sector of our economy to whatever degree is necessary to drastically reduce our emissions would destroy the parable… the fate of the whole world outweighs the cost to taxpayers.
Job creation: Like I've already argued (and this mimics more the classic arguments made), clean energy subsidies will lead to greater job creation. Like in the parable, this will lead to more money for more people to spend and boost our economy as a whole.
National security: Boosting clean energy means stronger national security. Any reasonable person would agree that the less oil we get from the Middle East, the safer our country is. Can you put a price tag on national security?
Those are not all the benefits of creating a "clean energy economy," but I think it is certainly sufficient to garner government support. In fact, I think the rationale for subsidizing clean energy is much stronger than it is for any other industry. My question again: if we're subsidizing so many other things with billions of dollars of tax money, why are you opposed to subsidizing an industry that has more benefits than most any other sector? And are you saying you're opposed to all subsidies and all taxes?
And before you make this counterpoint: I would love to see us reduce our subsidies in other areas of the economy; it would then be more fiscally responsible to then support clean energy.
You're wrong on health and environmental benefits. If you reduce CO2 emissions, you are simultaneously cutting other harmful pollutants. Automobiles, factories, power plants etc. produce not only CO2, but other waste products that are detrimental to the health of people, plants, and animals. If the government really has "dealt" with these, you wouldn't see an increase in asthma, heart attack, etc. rates near coal power plants and other polluting industries. We pay more because of this pollution. Since these buildings create or use dirty energy, using clean energy would lead to less contaminants in the surrounding areas. That is not debatable.
Wow, you are honestly going to argue that temperatures have not been going up? Bill O'Reilly even agreed that they were! haha. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYmRRQxbQ1o&fe… Look at the data. There are many theories about the effects of climate change, but most of them coalesce around the idea that if we do nothing, we will DEFINITELY see catastrophic climate change. The "tipping point" has long been under debate. I would rather bet on action succeeding and preserving my grandchildren's future than throw in the towel and assume that nothing we do will help.
The article you cite starts with:
"Spain's hopes of becoming a world leader in solar power have collapsed since the Spanish government slammed the brakes on generous subsidies."
Do you know what would happen to any subsidized industry in this country if we "slammed the brakes" on "generous subsidies?" Something similar, I can assure you. Why don't you cite an article about Denmark and how they once imported 100% but now get 0% of their oil from the Middle East? And how they are world leaders in wind turbine technology (that they are profitably exporting)?? You can find an example and counterexample to most anything.
I am for more nuclear power plant construction. I think Obama is too (even though he won't come out and say it directly). But, I believe it should be part of a mix of solutions to the energy crisis. Whatever we do, though, we need to act swiftly and boldly for the sake of both our planet and national security.