"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have"
Thomas Jefferson

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Promises, Promises, Promises

Obama's speech last night was loaded with socialist policy promises, everything from curing cancer to everyone having a college education to read my lips no new taxes, anyone making less than $250,000 will not pay a DIME MORE, not a dime more in taxes. Obama also included his promise to halve the budget deficit by the end of his first term.

Here is the line that may come back to haunt Obama.

"But let me perfectly clear, because I know you’ll hear the same old claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people: if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime."

Do not be mistaken, ambition is a positive trait, but managing expectation is a valuable ability.How does he pay for his ambitions?

Here is a complete list of his promises compiled by Politico.

— National health care coverage within the year.

— Seek a “cure for cancer in our time.”

— Reestablish America as producing the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.

— Lay “thousands of miles of power lines,” and construct wind turbines and solar panels.

— Expand mass transit.

— Reform the regulatory system

— Pass legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution

— Commit to the goal of a “re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry.”

— Invest in electronic health records and new technology to reduce medical errors.

— Create new incentives for teacher performance

— Expand commitments to charter schools

— Sign legislation on national service authored by Sens. Edward Kennedy and Orrin Hatch.

— End direct payments to “large agribusinesses that don’t need them.”

— Eliminate no bid contracts in Iraq.

— “Root out waste, fraud and abuse in our Medicare program.”

— Jettison tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas.

— No new taxes – “not one single dime” – for families that earn less than $250,000 a year.

— Begin debate on overhauling Social Security while creating “tax-free universal savings account for all Americans.”

— Increase the number of soldiers and Marines – and raise their pay and benefits.

— Encourage parental responsibility.

 

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

A true conservative knows the one and only true God. He can see the moral decay of America and the Democrats. Why hasn't Fox news had this guy on the show yet? His beliefs are the same as Ann Coulter and Rushbo on a good day.

Anonymous said...

Inspirational. Magnificent. You can quickly run out of adjectives for this new administration.

Thank God we now have somebody steering the ship who has a clear vision for this country. Thank God for Obama.

Anonymous said...

And that clear vision would include Socialism?
I'd rather have someone with a murky vision that stayed out of my wallet.

Anonymous said...

former w speechwriter david frum (via andrew sullivan; emphasis mine):

A federal bank takeover is a bad thing obviously. I wonder though if we conservatives understand clearly enough why it is a bad thing. It’s not because we are living through an enactment of the early chapters of Atlas Shrugged. It’s because the banks are collapsing. Obama, Pelosi, et al are big-spending, high-taxing liberals. They are not socialists. They are no more eager to own these banks than the first President Bush was to own the savings and loan industry – in both cases, federal ownership was a final recourse after a terrible failure. And it was on our watch, not Obama’s, that this failure began. Our refusal to take notice of this obvious fact may excite the Republican faithful. But it is doing tremendous damage to our ability to respond effectively to the crisis.

iv and anon 2:23, do you have any idea at all what socialism actually means? i mean, good grief, in your opening paragraph, iv, you specifically cite three "socialist policy promises," none of which is actually socialism! i would say that it'll be embarrassing for you to look back after obama's first term and see how far from socialism the result actually is, except i know that you don't embarrass that easily.

Danny M. Francis (Eyepublius) said...

Socialism, nationalism, patriotism, "spread the wealth-ism," redistribute the wealth-ism, God-forbid, big government-ism...

Gee, we had none of that under Bush, right, Mr. and Mrs. Off-shore, hide the assets with UBS or Aruba or Dubai bank accounts? ...

Naw, it's just those nasty, tax and spend DEMS -- damn them to hell, right?

Then of course, we have the GOP alternative, which is/was: "... cut taxes, drive into a ditch, and to hell with deficit spending and foreign borrowing just to pay the interest on our debt to those we borrow from ...

Kinda at a loss of words now aren't cha'? You betcha ... gosh darn it!

Here, a hint: It's called politics as usual and it stinks.

~ scurry on - 2010 is just around the corner.

Anonymous said...

OMG what do you guys smoke at sundown.You think the fed owning everything is a good thing? You think us paying for it is better?I remember years back when these banks and companies kept merging people where bitching about it.Don't remember which side rep or dem. But apparently the people where right!because now they're to big to fail. I say bull**** lets go back to the small hometown banks,small business,small farms and even smaller gov.

Danny M. Francis (Eyepublius) said...

Anon 11:26. That's the ticket: "Back to the Future..."

Hang on tight - "Where we're going, we don't need roads."

Doc Brown said so.

Anonymous said...

Frog, don't act so high and mighty. Despite your attitude, you aren't that much smarter than everyone here. One of the main aspect of Socialism is emphasis on state ownership and control of institutions. That is what we are seeing. Only a fool or a partisan (I'll let you explain) would suggest that we are NOT seeing this trend under President Pelosi. I don't like to see more government influence in much of anything. With these budgets, we are seeing more and more. But I don't imagine it matters as most folks don't really care. Which means don't worry my dear Frog, be happy.

Anonymous said...

from my computer's dictionary (emphasis mine):

socialism. noun. a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

or from the wikipedia article i linked to earlier (again, emphasis mine):

Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating public or state ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by equal opportunities for all individuals, with a fair or egalitarian method of compensation.

of course, it's inarguable that the economic policies of the obama administration and democratic congress involve more government intervention than we've had under bush/reagan/whatever-you-will conservatism. but they fall laughably short of socialism -- i mean, no one's talking at all about the government appropriating the means of production! (ok: there is a lot of talk about putting some of the major banks into receivership, but as the quote from david frum points out, no one intends whatsoever for that to be permanent; and last i knew, even george will seemed to be on board!)

i think the word you want -- again, as frum points out -- is "liberal," not "socialist." if you can show me where in obama's budget it calls for the government to start owning factories, then i'd happily take everything back.

finally, why are your comments to me so frequently so personal? if you have points to raise or arguments to make, then why can't you just let them stand on their own?

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