Obama’s First Six Months: The Fail

Obama’s First Six Months: The Fail

Domestic

Even being kind and peering through rose-colored glasses won’t give the appearance that President Obama has succeeded in his major policy initiatives – especially when you look at real data from his first two quarters in office.

The biggest challenge he talked about in the final days of election season was the economy and his policies and initiatives have fallen well short of promise. It could be worse than just the bare unemployment figures indicate.

While there are mild signs of recovery, the overall data after two fiscal quarters of Obama’s Presidency indicate the big fail on most promises. States are the beggars next in line to come after US Taxpayers and you should expect to see lots of lobbying from them during the second half of the year.

He promised not to raise taxes on the middle class, but he certainly has. With tobacco taxes as first step and the coming Cap and Trade Bill, pretty much every person in the US will see some impact to their budget in the form of a hidden energy tax.

The effects on industry are likely to quell the mild recovery mentioned above, but he’s pressuring the Senate right now to get it passed pronto. Let us hope the Senate stops this monstrous blow on the economy and your wallet. This might also impact the balance of power in congress, as vulnerable Dems come under fire for voting for Cap and Trade.

If Cap and Trade doesn’t stall the economy, then his health care reform plan will, and that looks headed into a maelstrom of congressional indecision. Congress will take this up right after the holiday break and you should expect some major contention. It seems that everyone wants universal health care, but not many want to pay for it.

In other areas he’s appearing like Bush III rather than a Democrat president, indeed the biggest “change” might be hypocrisy.

On ethics President Obama’s promised transparency in government has been displaced by realpolitik, and the end of influence he promised has been tossed in favor of pay to play and patronage. Congress doesn’t seem to mind since they are the new jet setters on our dime, and for now the MSM is still backing the President’s plays.

Foreign

When it comes to the war on terror, Obama is a series of reversals and that’s the only reason he gains a passing grade. Here are but a few:

  • He promised to stop warrant less wiretaps, but has reversed on that.
  • He promised to end unlimited gitmo detention, but reversed on that
  • He promised to close gitmo, but now runs into the same rock and hard place Bush did.
  • He promised to release Abu Ghraib photos, but wisely reversed after counseling on that.

In every major challenge to the US from tinpots and tyrants, he’s talked softly and wielded a feather boa. The only reasons he gets a C in foreign policy are his firm prosecution of the war in Afghanistan and his follow through on the Bush policy and negotiations in Iraq. He is clearly on path to alienate some allies such as Israel, Columbia, and Japan from his soft stance and passive/agressive meddling.

The recent Honduran issue shows clearly that he is as isolationist as any hard core paleocon rightwinger, although his approach is passive / aggressive rather than blunt as a paleocon’s would be. The mixed message of “not a coup but not legal” and the pressure through OAS that our state department is sending sure isn’t impressing our allies who are opposed to Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution in Central and South America.

I am certainly not one of those who are hoping for Obama to fail and consider it stupid for anyone to wish for that – but it appears that in many areas he is not succeeding. Hope and Change has metamorphosed into Hypocrisy and Carterdom.

Nancy Says “Everything is on the Table” including Taxes

Nancy Says “Everything is on the Table” including Taxes

When it comes to how to pay for their health care plan costs the Democrats are being vague as you can see in this interview with Nancy Pelosi. When asked about taxes her only reply is “everything is on the table… everything is on the table.. ” For Nancy that really means everything is on the table except questions about her lies about the CIA, and working with the Minority on health care reforms. Those must be under the table, in the other room, or perhaps outside and down the block underneath a dumpster or something.

Obama’s Open Government: Release Abu Ghraib Photos; No Visibility to Tarp Funds

Obama’s Open Government: Release Abu Ghraib Photos but No Visibility to Tarp Funds

obamaI would laugh, but it’s not funny. President Obama is still waffling on releasing Abu Ghraib photos five years after the fact, and closing Gitmo, but at the same time the American public has pretty much zero visibility to where Tarp money is going, where auto bailout money went, or analysis of how the coming climate legislation is expected to affect them economically.

While Al Qaeda in Iraq is trying their own “Re-surge” with a spate of suicide bombing aimed at reopening sectarian conflict our President proposed releasing five year old photos that are certain to enrage now calm militias in Baghdad.

How is it open to propose then revoke on Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and Tarp? The American public is certainly more interested in how the government is spending Trillions in their tax dollars and managing the offshore loans against our future.

We have no clear policy directions on Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Pakistan yet. How open is that?

We don’t know when taxes will be added, or what taxes will be added – how open is that? We don’t know whether the Bush tax-cuts will expire, how open is that? ( knowing the tax structure in advance is critical to planning most medium to large business’ in the US. Most of the bean-counters still don’t know what to plan for two to three years out and it’s crippling our ability to grow the economy back.)

This isn’t open government, it’s posture and charade.

Cap and Tax Shell Game Pushed by Geithner

Cap and Tax Shell Game Pushed by Geithner

This is the worst possible time to be pushing cap and trade – increased prices for energy are not the answer for our economic woes, and a low energy future is not the way to combat pollution. If we want to tackle the problem we should be building clean energy, not penalizing all sources we don’t agree with because bankrupting power companies and decreasing energy supply has dire consequences for the world. Make no mistake about this: it’s the middle class tax hike Obama didn’t tell you about in the election, and it could easily be argued that sustained high energy prices for several years led directly to the mortage debacle which pushed us over the hill into recession.

Pork Bubbles: Graphic Representation of the Stimulus Bill

Pork Bubbles

Now that the porkathon in Congress is over and the Stimulus bill certain to pass, it’s time to look at what your congresscritters hath wrought. There’s a great graphic representation of it over at the Washington post that breaks it down into proportionally representative bubbles. A quick glance will show you that Health and Human Services gets a lion’s share, while military spending is a small bubble, and from the labeling it looks like “lights on” maintenance, and nothing new for the military. Please stop by to take a look.

Meanwhile, Washington Times points out how recipients of previous bailout dollars keep donating to politicians with your tax dollars. Isn’t there something morally wrong with that, if not legally?

A Washington Times analysis found that executives and employee-funded political action committees of banking companies that received bailout money have donated more than $2 million to members of Congress and other politicians since lawmakers approved the federal rescue of America’s financial system in October.

Over the next few years most conservative bloggers are going to be obsessed with Obama – you aren’t going to see me focuing there too much. Instead I think it better to keep the heat and light on Congress, because that’s where the next generation’s problems will arise from.

Obama’s Budget is a Giveaway Grab Bag; You Don’t Know What Will Come Out of It

We’ve already seen how Barack manages large programs, under the Annenberg Challenge with Bill Ayers he gave away a total of 150 million to gaggle of community activist groups to improve schools. Some of those groups were radical, but putting that aside a moment you can see that the vague “feel good” instead of results-oriented direction under Obama just created monumental waste with zero results. The other cities given these grants saw improvement, Chicago stands alone with zero improvement.

His proposed budget for the country should give everyone pause, especially with Annenberg as the only real executive track record to judge by. Traditional media has ignored this because of the Ayers weather underground terror connection and Marxist ideology, but it’s essential to examine Annenberg because it’s the only executive “achievement” that Barack Obama has. The MSM failure to examine the results and goals of Annenberg in detail is journalistic and moral bankruptcy.

The McCain-Palin campaign has critized his tax plans as welfare, so Barack’s campaign has come back and tweaked it to add a work requirement. (They will materialize things out of thin air as needed to get elected.) This comes from the New Hampshire Union Leader in reply:

“Facing criticism from John McCain that his tax plan constitutes ‘welfare,’ Barack Obama recently added a work requirement to one of his proposals. ‘They started saying this was welfare,’ said Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee. “So, just so they would absolutely not be able to say that, we decided that for the last two percent we’ll simply add a work requirement.’ …’When did this change? I’m just curious,’ an incredulous Holtz-Eakin asked Goolsbee. ‘About two weeks ago,’ replied Goolsbee, adding that when the proposal was announced in September 2007, 98 percent of its benefits went to workers.” — ABC News

“The bottom line is that Obama is not being honest about his tax and spending plans. It is impossible — impossible! — for him to finance his giveaways by taxing only those making $250,000 or more. He will have to raise taxes substantially on people making much, much less than that. If you think you are going to avoid a tax increase on Obama’s watch because you aren’t ‘rich,’ remember this: A government that arbitrarily picks $250,000 as a dividing line can, using the same purely political considerations, pick any number as a dividing line.” — New Hampshire Union Leader

 

Kudos to the NH Union Leader for pinning down the specifics on this, as we know Obama prefers to be vague — he puts forth sweeping general statements that sound good, and we are not supposed to question. Barack is running for president however, and it’s every journalist’s duty to question.

So once again you see that the Obama campaign is a weather vane moving in the wind, and as everyone knows you don’t need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows…