Obama has a long laundry list of reasons why he says you should vote to give him a second term. He says he deserves another four years because his policies are bringing unemployment down (though it is still higher than when he took office, and the numbers today are artificially inflated due to the fact that so many workers have simply given up hope and stopped looking for work). He claims that he has restored respect for America on the world stage, yet America is now perceived as weak and our enemies openly mock us and challenge our mettle.
He says he should not be blamed for high gas prices (which have doubled since he became president) and points out that our oil production is higher than when he took office, while conveniently pointing out that this is almost exclusively due to oil production on private land, or land leased under the Bush administration (oil production on federal land has dropped almost by half under Obama). More than three years into his presidency he still blames George W. Bush for the anemic economic growth, and the massive new debt incurred under his watch. I guess when your presidency has been one long string of failures and corruption; you have to spin it the best way possible. Unfortunately, no matter how hard you try, you just can't polish manure.
Curiously absent from Obama's campaign diatribes is reference to his signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act, known more derisively as ObamaCare. Considering he made this the centerpiece of his first two years in office, one would think he'd be shouting his glorious achievement from the rooftops. So why isn't he?
Maybe he's reluctant to let the sun shine on ObamaCare because sunlight, as it has been said, is the best disinfectant, and heaven knows it needs disinfecting. ObamaCare was disgorged upon the American people nearly two years ago, the bastardized mutant creation of House and Senate Democrats conspiring in the backrooms on Capitol Hill, plotting and scheming, bribing and threatening, extorting and shaming their members into voting for this squalid, teeming mass of fetid legislation, cobbling together an amalgam of business-crushing regulations and liberty-usurping mandates, all so Democrats could secure control over nearly a fifth of the American economy, and more importantly, over the bodies and health care of the American people.
Even with all of the underhandedness and corruption, it still managed to pass the Senate without a single Republican vote, and by a razor thin margin (219-212) in the House, with 34 Democrats joining every single Republican in voting against it. Even then, it required the use of arcane parliamentary tactics get the bill to pass.
Further explaining Obama's reluctance to campaign on his health care "reform" law, the law has only grown more unpopular since its passage. The Attorneys General of 28 states have filed suit in federal court to block its implementation, and some federal courts have ruled its linchpin, the individual mandate, as unconstitutional. The final word will be given by the Supreme Court when it rules on the law this summer.
Key provisions of the law have already begun to fall by the wayside. Last October the White House was forced to admit that the CLASS Act, the long term care insurance plan, was "unsustainable." This was exposed when Obama administration officials "discovered they could not make CLASS both affordable and financially solvent while keeping it a voluntary program open to virtually all workers, as the law also required ... Monthly premiums would have ranged from $235 to $391, even as high as $3,000 under some scenarios ... healthy people were unlikely to sign up." Who would have ever guessed? Oh right ... anyone with an IQ above room temperature.
Obama was also forced to revise cost estimates when a solid bipartisan majority in the House and Senate repealed the section of the law that would have required businesses to file a Form 1099 with the IRS for every vendor with which they spent more than $600 in a year, which would have been an accounting nightmare and a heavy burden on small business. This was projected to bring in tens of billions is additional tax revenue, and without it, the price of ObamaCare goes up. In reality, the elimination of this provision keeps small business growth from being worse than it already is.
Though Sarah Palin was excoriated and ridiculed for using the term "death panels," the passage of time has proven her correct. The IPAB (Independent Patient Advisory Board) is a small panel of bureaucrats charged with reducing the cost of Medicare (more than the $500 billion Democrats gutted from the program in the bill). The panel will accomplish this by limiting the treatment a patient can receive, largely based on their long-term prospects to being productive members of society's workforce. Are you elderly and in need of a hip replacement? Sorry grandma, but unless you're gonna be going back to work driving a forklift, it's not really cost effective to waste that money on you. Here's some Excedrin though.
With ObamaCare the hits just keep on coming. The latest blow to ObamaCare comes from the Congressional Budget office in the form of a revised cost projection for the program. According to the CBO (which by law uses static, rather than dynamic, accounting estimates, which means it is constantly underestimating costs), in just the last year the 10-year cost projection jumped from around $900 billion to $1.762 TRILLION, doubling the projected cost in a single year, and the program has not even been fully implemented! If it is this bad now, how bad will it be once it is operating full swing?
Obama promised that the law would "bend the cost curve downward" and that "if you like your insurance (or doctor), you can keep your insurance (or doctor)." Both claims have been proven to be outright lies (I know, I know ... a lie from Obama ... shocker!"). What's worse, not only has it not achieved its stated purpose of providing every American with health insurance, it has actually forced many small businesses to stop offering insurance to its employees as the rising costs simply became prohibitive. More people than ever are being forced off of private insurance and into a worthless, one-size-fits-all government plan. That should be exciting; the quality of the British health care system combined with the efficiency of the Postal Service, the friendliness of the IRS and the responsiveness of the DMV; a match made in hell.
This does not even touch on the fact that, if this law stands as written and is upheld by the Supremes, there will be literally nothing that the federal government could not require American citizens to do or buy. If the American people are wise, they will issue Obama and the Democrats a pink slip in November, and get down to the work of the complete repeal of this monstrosity, and in doing do set our feet back on the path to liberty.
Louis DeBroux is a Taylorsville resident, married, with eight children. He is chairman of the Bartow County Republican Party. He owns Gatekeeper data backup and recovery. He can be emailed at led@gatekeeperbackup.com.