Crimes Against Liberty Read online

  • Obama claimed he had saved two million jobs through his “stimulus” bill and was “on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year.” The Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl suggests we keep in mind an “important number” relevant to this discussion: 6.3 million, which represents the “Obama jobs gap—the difference between 3.3 million net jobs President Obama said would be created (not just saved) and the nearly 3 million additional net jobs that have since been lost.”The administration’s argument that “it would have been worse” without the stimulus is, says Riedl, “completely unprovable”—it is “faith-based economics.” He notes the president’s SOTU claim that millions of jobs had been saved is not based on any actual numbers, but on Obama’s “unshakable belief that deficit spending must create jobs and growth”—in other words, Obama has blind faith that the stimulus must have created jobs, because an economic theory predicted it would.

  Indeed, there is further proof that Obama has an “unshakable belief” that government money will stimulate the economy, even if that money has been taken from the private sector: his refusal to allow firms to pay back TARP money because he believed the money needed to keep circulating in the economy. As Riedl explains, “The idea that government spending creates jobs makes sense only if you never ask where the government got the money. It didn’t fall from the sky. The only way Congress can inject spending into the economy is by first taxing or borrowing it out of the economy. No new demand is created; it’s a zero-sum transfer of existing demand.... Yet the White House continues to wave the magic wand of ‘stimulus.’ All evidence that it failed be damned.”57

  Investors Business Daily is equally dismissive of the administration’s bogus claim to have saved or created millions of jobs, saying it has “moved the yard markers” to distort the data. IBD editors recall the administration’s warning that without the stimulus there would be 133.9 million U.S. jobs in the fourth quarter of 2010 (“that’s the baseline”), and with the stimulus we would have almost 3.7 million more that that: 137.6 million. Instead, they wrote, we have 129.7 million jobs—8 million less than the administration predicted—and yet the administration claims it saved or created 2.8 million jobs. This means they “had to lower the baseline by 7 million jobs to only 126.9 million.” 58 The administration’s counting gimmicks make your head spin, and they’re hoping the confusion helps prevent their accountability.

  • Obama claims he inherited overwhelming deficits from his predecessor. But as we detail in the next chapter, Congressman Jeb Hensarling refuted this claim to Obama’s face at the Republican congressional retreat in Baltimore, showing that average deficits during the twelve years when Republicans controlled the House were $104 billion, contrasted with average deficits under the three years of Democratic control of $1.1 trillion.

  • Obama announced, “Let me repeat: we cut taxes. We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families. We cut taxes for small businesses. We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college. As a result, millions of Americans had more to spend on gas, and food, and other necessities, all of which helped businesses keep more workers.” The Cato Institute rejoined that Obama could hardly cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans, since more than 40 percent of Americans pay no federal income taxes in the first place—the administration has simply counted increased subsidy checks to members of these groups as tax cuts. But refundable tax credits are unearned subsidies, not tax cuts.59 Put another way, he dishonestly reclassified spending increases as tax cuts.

  HEALTHCARE LIES

  When Obama spoke to a joint session of Congress on healthcare on September 9, 2009, he said, “Under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.” This was one of the assertions prompting Congressman Joe Wilson to yell, “You lie.” It turns out Wilson was right. Congressman Bart Stupak, who was then at least posturing as an uncompromising advocate for life, claimed Obama told him Obama was not talking about the actual bill then under consideration in the House, but about “his” plan, which hadn’t yet been written .60 The bill that finally went through obviously allowed funding for abortion because Stupak only agreed to vote for it after Obama pledged to sign a meaningless executive order to prohibit such funding.

  During that same speech Obama also asserted, “There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage,” which was a curious number because he had previously been citing a figure of 46 million. Clearly, he was forced into reducing the number by conscientious conservative critics who had pointed out various inaccuracies in the statistic, including the fact that millions of those uninsured were not U.S. citizens. But his revised claim was still outrageously wrong because millions included in that number could afford insurance but chose not to purchase it for their own reasons, and millions more were already eligible for government benefits but did not avail themselves of them. Additionally, the Census Bureau figures underreport insurance coverage because they count many people as uninsured even though they are only without coverage for part of the year.61

  Once ObamaCare passed, it proved so unpopular that Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius, according a May 30, 2010 Washington Examiner editorial, “resorted to sending millions of senior Americans a sales brochure that is packed with blatantly false claims about Obamacare.” Among its falsehoods, the report, published by the HHS’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), guaranteed Medicare benefits would remain unchanged, even though CMS experts have testified ObamaCare’s Medicare cuts could “jeopardize access” for millions of seniors. Eight GOP senators sent a letter to Sebelius asking her to explain the report’s misstatements. According to the Examiner, they’re still waiting for a reply.

  SINGLE-PAYER PLAN AND THE PUBLIC OPTION

  Throughout his presidential campaign and into his presidency, Obama has routinely misrepresented his position on healthcare reform. He repeatedly denied he supported a single-payer healthcare system, for example telling a New Hampshire townhall meeting on August 11, 2009, that he never said he supported a single-payer healthcare system. This came in sharp contrast to his videotaped 2003 assertion that “I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care plan.”62

  Obama also obfuscated his position on the so-called public option. On December 22, 2009, he declared, “I didn’t campaign on the public option.”63 But on March 24, 2007, he had told an SEIU healthcare forum, “The public option is your friend.” In fact, his address to the SEIU revealed his true goal was not only to introduce a public option, but eventually to kill off private health insurance altogether: “My commitment is to make sure that we have universal health care for all Americans by the end of my first term as president. . . . But I don’t think we’ll be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out.”

  Although in other venues, Obama vehemently rejected speculation that the public option would be a Trojan horse for single payer, his Democratic allies were quite open about it. Congressman Barney Frank admitted, “If we get a good public option it could lead to single-payer and that’s the best way to reach single-payer.” Democratic congresswoman Jan Schakowsky similarly confessed, “The public option would put the private insurance industry out of business.”64

  Throughout most of the healthcare debate, Obama pressed hard for the public option on his website and in media appearances. He said in his weekly radio address on July 17, 2009, “any plan” he signs “must include . . . a public option.” Three days later he told leftist bloggers he still believed “a robust public option would be the best way to go.” On September 20, 2009, he told NBC’s David Gregory a public option “should be a part of this [health] care bill” and denied it was “dead.”65 The head spins.

  Although Obama ultimately failed to get a public option included in Ob
amaCare, he probably achieved the equivalent of it with all the provisions enabling him to destroy private insurance or turn it into a public utility. The Washington Examiner’s editors agree that the “public option is alive and well, but hidden”—“residing in Section 1334, pages 97-100, of the new healthcare law. That section gives the U.S. Office of Personnel Management—which presently manages the federal civil service—new responsibilities: establishing and running two entirely new government health insurance programs to compete directly with private insurance companies in every state with coverage for people outside of government.”66

  ALLOWING IMPORTED PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

  Obama campaigned on a promise to “allow Americans to buy their medicines from other developed countries if the drugs are safe and prices are lower outside the U.S.”67 Thankfully, he caved on this one as part of his bribe to get Big Pharma to support ObamaCare.

  GOP HEALTHCARE PROPOSALS

  Decrying the GOP as the “Party of No,” Obama denied for months that Republicans had any healthcare solutions. But he quickly changed his tune when he invited them to the televised “healthcare summit” to discuss their ideas. He also said his proposal contained many Republican ideas, which is odd, since he’d insisted those ideas didn’t exist. Of course, Republicans in fact put forth many healthcare proposals, including market-based solutions in proposals such as Congressman Paul Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s Future, that were shot dead in their tracks—proposals Obama was aware of and wouldn’t even acknowledge, much less consider.

  IRAN AND ISRAEL

  During his presidential campaign, Obama denied rumors he was unfriendly to Israel and to Jewish interests. While this whopper is big enough to get its own chapter in this book, we’ll touch on just a few issues here.

  While campaigning, candidate Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee his goal would be to eliminate the nuclear threat to Israel from Iran. “I’ll do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything.... I will always leave the threat of military action on the table to defend our security, and that of our ally Israel.” As president, however, Obama has shown more passion for denouncing Israeli settlements than for stopping Iran from getting the bomb. In fact, he supported a resolution by members of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty that singled out Israel for criticism while not even mentioning Iran, which has repeatedly vowed to annihilate the Jewish state.

  Furthermore, Obama proclaimed the city of “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and must remain undivided.”68 Almost as quickly as he uttered the commitment, he backtracked under heavy Palestinian criticism and later clarified that the status of Jerusalem would need to be negotiated in future peace talks. The Associated Press reported on March 20, 2010, that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu all issues between Israel and the Palestinians, including the possibility of a divided Jerusalem, must remain part of the negotiations. 69 Moreover, if Obama were strictly committed to an undivided Jerusalem, why did he demand that the Israeli government halt any new settlement construction or expansion in Eastern Jerusalem?

  WITHDRAWING TROOPS FROM IRAQ

  Candidate Obama was adamant that he would “remove one to two combat brigades each month and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months”—even against the advice of the generals on the ground. The promise delighted many of his supporters and boosted his profile among the antiwar Left at the expense of his Democratic primary rival, Hillary Clinton, who wouldn’t make such a promise. But he didn’t come close to meeting this schedule and even abandoned his insistence on complete withdrawal, saying he would leave behind a residual force of 35,000 to 50,000 until the end of 2011.70 However, Obama obviously derived some satisfaction from formally changing the name of our Iraqi effort from “Operation Iraqi Freedom” to “Operation New Dawn,” perhaps to punctuate his disapproval of the effort from the outset, as a “war of choice.”

  NATIONAL SECURITY

  When campaigning for president, Obama lashed out at President George W. Bush for employing legal justifications to support enhanced interrogation techniques. He piously pledged to “abide by the Geneva Conventions. We will uphold our highest ideals.” Yet his own Justice Department used those very same legal arguments when trying to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to dismiss Rasul v. Rumsfeld, saying the plaintiffs didn’t clearly establish that their constitutional rights had been violated .71 Candidate Obama had also vowed to stop “extraordinary rendition,” but as president, his Justice Department adopted the Bush Justice Department’s supposedly unacceptable arguments in defending against five men who claimed they had been subjected to the practice in the case of Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen Dataplan Inc.72

  Indeed, one columnist correctly argued, “On state secrets, indefinite detention, warrantless surveillance, the Patriot Act and signing statements, President Obama has used the language of transparency to give the appearance of change. In practice, however he has asserted virtually the same executive authority he reviled as abuses by his predecessor.”73 The same holds true for his targeting of suspected al Qaeda members in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

  ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  Obama boasted of having “criticized the Secretary of State for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used the term ‘genocide’ to describe Turkey’s slaughter of thousands of Armenians starting in 1914. . . . As President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.” He so far has not honored that pledge despite making statements on memorials for the event, and reportedly tried to scuttle a House Foreign Affairs Committee resolution officially recognizing the genocide .74

  THE BORN ALIVE INFANT PROTECTION ACT

  Critics who accuse Obama of having supported infanticide are not engaging in hyperbole. While in the Illinois Senate, Obama opposed the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection bill—a measure almost identical to the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act. These bills were designed to provide immediate protection to a child born as a result of a failed abortion. In 2001, Obama voted against the Illinois bill in committee and gave a floor speech opposing it, but voted “present” on the bill. After passing the Illinois Senate, the bill failed in the House. In 2002 the bill was proposed again, and Obama voted “no” in committee, spoke against it on the Senate floor, and voted “no” on the floor. The bill failed again. In 2003, the bill was reintroduced, and after certain amendments were added, became virtually identical to the federal bill. Obama then led committee Democrats in voting to kill the amended bill.75

  During the presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly lied about his record on this while audaciously accusing his critics of lying. In an interview with CBN’s David Brody, Obama said the National Right to Life had lied in asserting he had voted against a state bill that was virtually identical to the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. After being repeatedly challenged—though not by Brody—Obama issued a statement acknowledging he had misstated his position in the CBN interview and that in fact he had voted against an identical bill in the state senate .76

  The video, however, makes it clear this wasn’t a mere misstatement. Obama clearly understood what he was saying, and he was adamant in calling his accusers “liars,” knowing that it was he who lied. On the floor of the Illinois Senate, Obama coldly expressed more concern for the doctors who would risk liability than for the live babies. He argued there was already an Illinois bill that would protect infants born as a result of a failed abortion. But in fact, Illinois state senator Patrick O’Malley said he had drafted that legislation only after the state attorney general’s office told him that existing Illinois law would not protect such babies .77 Obama also claimed doctors would take care of infants who were born alive and therefore no new law was needed. But in fact, as many as one in five babies were left to die, which is why the bill was offered in the first place. And Obama knew it.

  VAN JONES, COMMUNIST

  Obama brought
on himself a firestorm of criticism when he named Van Jones as “Green Jobs Czar.” Appointed in March 2009, Van Jones resigned under pressure in September 2009 because of revelations about his radical past (including ties to Communist groups and his self-identification as a Communist at one point), his vulgar, incendiary statements against Republicans, and his signing of a “Truther” petition suggesting the Bush administration may have facilitated the 9/11 attacks.

  Or did he actually resign? White House adviser David Axelrod said Jones made the decision himself, but Accuracy in Media reported he was forced out of his position, and that documents obtained through a FOIA request indicate the administration even wrote his resignation letter for him.78 The Obama administration was also untruthful in claiming they had not properly vetted Jones before appointing him. Not only did their appointment of many other radicals discredit the claim, but Jones was the specific choice of Obama confidant and close adviser Valerie Jarrett, who bragged that she had recruited him for the position.79 The insufficient vetting excuse was also suspect considering that the White House specifically created this position for Van Jones because of his unique background. They knew what they were getting. They just didn’t want us to know.

  BLOCKING FOX NEWS

  CBS News exposed false denials by the Obama administration that they had blocked FOX interviews with pay czar Ken Feinberg. Treasury said “there was no plot to exclude FOX News and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing.” But the other four networks who were granted interviews knew better. The only reason the interview was granted is that the other four networks of the press pool, including CBS, refused to participate without FOX. CBS reporter Chip Reid said the administration “crossed the line.”80