THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 222, October 24, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
OBAMA'S FAILURE AGENDA
By Alan Caruba
THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSERVATIVES VOTING IN THE NOVEMBER 2, 2010, MID-TERM U.S. CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS:
THE NEXT CONGRESS, PARTICULARLY THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WHERE ALL FEDERAL SPENDING
BILLS ARE INITIATED & FIRST PASSED, MUST APPLY THE BREAKS ON THE LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVES OF PRESIDENT
BARACK OBAMA & THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, IF AMERICA IS TO SURVIVE OBAMA'S FAILURE AGENDA.
FULL STORY:
Normally, we assume that anyone who runs for and assumes the Office of President of the U.S.A. has an agenda
intended to succeed and thereby ensure that history will look favorably on his accomplishments as President. The
men who served in that office craved success and loathed failure.
Barack Hussein Obama didn’t merely promise hope and change. On June 3, 2008, in his nomination victory speech, he
said that “this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the
moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal….”
Lovely rhetoric, soaring oratory, but the sick were being cared for in hospitals all over America, even if they could not
afford it, because the law required such care then and now. No one was being turned away at the emergency room. As
for jobs, in 2008, the unemployment rate rose to 6.1%, the highest level since September, 2003. Today, it officially stands
at 9.6% and is widely understood to be far closer, in reality, to 20%.
As for the Earth beginning to heal, I have no idea what he meant by that and I doubt anybody else did. Last time I
checked, the Earth was doing just fine. The seas, meantime, have been rising a few millimeters each century and give no
indication of stopping.
What will end, however, is the control of the U.S. Congress by the Democrats on January 3, 2011. As a consequence of
the November 2, 2010, congressional elections, this definitely will happen in the U.S. House of Representatives and
quite possibly will occur in the U.S. Senate.
What has already ended is Barack Obama’s credibility as President and American national leader. Few people who have
been paying attention believe anything the man says.
It took less than half his term as President to achieve this, but it began with his Oath of Office that required a “do-over.”
Legislatively, letting Nancy Pelosi write and ram through a $787 billion stimulus bill was an indicator that Obama was
clueless regarding ways to jump-start the economy. Obama signed it into law in February, 2009.
Meanwhile, he busied himself with taking over ownership of General Motors and Chrysler, as well as signing off on a
failed “Cash for Clunkers” program.
The stimulus program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, spent $63 million on a tunnel to nowhere
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and $89,000 on a sidewalk that led to a ditch in Boynton, Oklahoma. And then there was
the President’s belated discovery that there were no “shovel ready” projects.
Among the projects funded were $1.9 million for international ant research, $554,763 for the National Forest Service to
replace windows in a closed Mount St. Helens visitor center, and $308 million for a joint clean energy venture with BP,
the petroleum company best known these days for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
While Americans were losing jobs and seeing their homes foreclosed upon, the Obama administration was spending
$700,000 to study why monkeys respond negatively to inequality, $529,000 to study the effects of the environment on
local populations in the Himalayas, and $456,000 to study the circulation of Neptune’s atmosphere.
Nearly $9 million was spent on signs promoting the Obama administration’s sponsorship of various stimulus projects.
President Obama's idea of bipartisanship was to tell Republicans in Congress: “We won.”
His press conferences have been disasters. So, there was a stretch of more than 300 days between the last two press
conferences.
His foreign policy decisions included abandoning Poland, Tibet, and Israel. His efforts to entice Iran were rebuffed and
the leaders of European nations and Russia made no secret that they regarded him as a dunce.
Obama took credit for the official end of the Iraq War, even though that had been set in motion by the Bush
administration well before Obama's election. Instead of just closing down U.S. participation in the Afghanistan quagmire,
Obama prolonged it.
At the heart of the mortgage loan financial collapse were two government entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but,
when the Obama administration signed off on new regulations for Wall Street, neither were even mentioned in the reform
legislation.
Big government has kept getting bigger and bigger. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) increased its
budget by twenty percent to $1.2 billion, more than triple its size in 2000. It is expected to increase by more than one
thousand people to about 4,700 regulators, a 36% increase from 2007.
Left unsaid: This is the same SEC that failed to spot Bernie Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme or do anything regarding
what were later deemed “toxic assets” requiring a TARP program to bail out the banks, investment firms, and AIG, an
insurance company.
Absolutely nothing good can be said for Obamacare. Most Americans opposed its passage and most say they want it
repealed.
It’s a long list of failures and bad judgment. It’s worth keeping in mind that, on the day Barack Obama was inaugurated,
the National Debt stood at $10.626 trillion. A recent calculation put it at an all time high of $13.665 trillion, an increase of
$4.9 trillion in under two years.
The National Debt, by the time Obama leaves office in 2012, is projected to soar to nearly $16.5 trillion, and that is more
than one hundred percent of the value of the nation’s economy.
Here’s what I think. I think this is exactly what Barack Hussein Obama had in mind when he ran for the Presidency and
what has been a deliberate agenda while he has been in office.
Don’t forget to vote in the mid-term congressional elections on November 2, 2010. The next Congress, particularly the
House of Representatives, where all spending bills must be initiated and passed, must slam on the breaks, if America is
to survive Obama’s failure agenda.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Politics, Political Competition, & the Control of
Public Policy: Elections, Political Parties, Political Factions,
Ideologies, & Special Interest Groups
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
American Government & the U.S. Congress:
Congressional Legislative Politics & National Public Policy
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, commentator and business and science writer,
he is the Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about "scare campaigns" designed to influence
public opinion and public policy.
Return to Top of Page
Go to the WEBSITE INDEX
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Public Issues & Political Controversies
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
Most Recent Articles
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Volume XII, 2010
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights
Return to POLITICAL EDUCATION Homepage
CONTACT & ACCESS INFORMATION
This is not a commercial website. The sole purpose of the website is to share with interested persons information regarding civics,
civic and social education, political science, government, politics, law, constitutional law and history, public policy and political
philosophy and history, as well as current and recent political developments, public issues, and political controversies.
POLITICAL EDUCATION, CONSERVATIVE ANALYSIS
POLITICS, SOCIETY, & THE SOVEREIGN STATE
Website of Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr.
Government, Politics, Public Policy, Legal Issues, Constitutional Law, Government & the Economy, Cultural Values, Foreign Affairs,
International Relations, Military Defense & National Security, Geopolitics, Terrorism & Homeland Security, American National Interests,
Political Systems & Processes, Political Institutions, Political Ideologies, & Political Philosophy
INDEX FOR THE ENTIRE WEBSITE
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity