|
Mail
Magazine 24
RNC
Backup Plan: Just Read Obama's 2008
Promises From the Podium
by Joel B. Pollak
If,
as George Orwell once observed, the
greatest enemy of any left-wing government is its previous propaganda,
then
Barack Obama’s most fearsome enemy is a small volume his campaign
published in
2008: Change We
Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise.
I bought it after Obama won the presidency that November, and it makes
for very
entertaining--and somewhat sad--reading nearly four years later.
Among
the many promises Obama makes are the
following: “Send Rebate Checks of $1,000 to American Families,” “Staff
the
Government Based on Talent, Not Political Loyalties,” and “Eliminate
North
Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Programs.” Some of the pledges combine hubris
with bad
policy: “Create Five Million New Green Jobs,” “Create Automatic
Workplace
Pensions.” Others are just silly: “Create a ‘Craigslist’ for Service.”
No
matter who you are, there’s a broken promise
in this book for you. Seniors? Obama promised to “Preserve Social
Security” and
“Put Medicare on Solid Footing.” Greens? Obama said he would “Rally the
World
to Stop Global Warming.” Chicago residents? Obama pledged to “End the
Dangerous
Cycle of Youth Violence.” The scale of Obama’s cult of personality can
be
measured by the wide scope of his disappointments today.
There
is one promise, however, that stands out
among the others, and best defines the failure of the Obama presidency:
the
promise to “Jump-start our economy with a $50 billion stimulus plan
that would
put money directly in the pockets of families struggling with rising
food and
mortgage payments.” The actual stimulus, as passed in early 2009, was
nearly 18
times as big and did little to help struggling families or the economy
itself.
That
broken promise stands out more than all
the others--more than the promise to cut health care costs by $2,500
per
family, more than the promise to keep a residual force in Iraq to
ensure
stability, more than the laughable assurance that Obama would fight
corruption--because it represents a colossal abuse of the public trust
and
Obama’s fiduciary duty to the nation. It makes a mockery of policy
arguments
about Keynesian stimulus or the multiplier effect of increased
government
spending. It is simply obscene.
If
Republicans end up canceling additional
events in their Tampa convention due to the storm lashing the Gulf
coast, they
have a reasonable alternative: have Reince Priebus read Change
We Can
Believe In, start to finish, from the podium, and let Americans ask
themselves
whether they would ever trust Barack Obama’s wild promises ever
again.
Source:
Breitbart
Read
this and other articles at Mail Magazine
24
|
