Obama in Prime-time

[PVVikeFan]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: burton2019</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It has been for some time. You just want to pin it on Obama. Sad. </div></div>

If you are old enough to remember it really started with Carter.

[sup-rbeast]

Actually, IMO, it started with LBJ, prepetuated by Nixon...

[Milk3]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: LCAS_712</div><div class="ubbcode-body">This really reminds me of how Hitler came to be. </div></div>

[PVVikeFan]

If you want to go back to LBJ you would really have to drop back one more to JFK. There were some major mistakes in both administrations.
The reason I said Carter was the changes in foreign policy and trade. That was the beginning of the end for American jobs. Then Slick Willie pretty much put on the finishing touches before he left office.

[imported_Counts]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: PVVikeFan</div><div class="ubbcode-body">If you want to go back to LBJ you would really have to drop back one more to JFK. There were some major mistakes in both administrations.
The reason I said Carter was the changes in foreign policy and trade. That was the beginning of the end for American jobs. Then Slick Willie pretty much put on the finishing touches before he left office. </div></div>

Of courese even if Bush had won the 92 election NAFTA would have went through the only canadate that was 100% against it was Parot

[PVVikeFan]

NAFTA could have been stopped by the Clinton administration but it wasn't. He pretty much forced it through.

[imported_Counts]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: PVVikeFan</div><div class="ubbcode-body">NAFTA could have been stopped by the Clinton administration but it wasn't. He pretty much forced it through. </div></div>

I agree but what I am saying is both Reps and Dems seemed OK with it the only one I remember talking bad about it was Perot so unless he had won I do not think eaither Dems or Reps would have done much to stop it

[BlueWahooChambordDevil]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...n4557520.shtml
Reality Check: The Cost Of Obama's Pledges
Web Exclusive: If Victorious, Barack Obama May Find Fewer Resources Than He Needs For His Campaign Promises
Comments 636
Oct. 29, 2008

(CBS) This story was written by CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Without question, the Barack Obama infomercial served as a very slick and powerful recitation of the biggest promises he's made as a presidential candidate. But the very bigness of his ideas is the problem: he seems blind to the concept his numbers don't add up.

Let's start with his highly suspect, and widely discredited, claim that he can find federal "spending cuts beyond the costs" of his promises. Very few independent economists believe he has identified the savings needed to offset his remarkable list of tax credits, tax cuts and spending pledges.

Fact: Even if you believe Obama intends to fix health care, most independent analysts say the cost is massive - $1.2 trillion over ten years, according to the highly respected Lewin Group. When the new Congress wakes up next year to a $1 trillion deficit, and answers the overwhelming new demands for another stimulus package, will the leadership really bite on a health care reform package that digs the deficit hole so much deeper?

And that's just the beginning of what Obama would spend.

Fact: The tax cuts he promises, which are mostly refundable tax credits (code for cash back), will cost $60 billion just in year one, according the National Taxpayers Union, though the Obama campaign's own estimates in July put that figure at $130 billion.

Fact: His new promise to give businesses a $3,000 tax credit for each new job created will cost $40 billion. But economists say this credit is far more likely to benefit companies already planning to expand and will likely not be enough to help companies create new jobs or forestall layoffs.

Fact: Obama's claim he will lower health care premiums by $2,500 is: 1.) guesswork, which is 2.) based on health care savings that might, in a perfect world, happen over 10 years - a fact Obama neatly glosses over.

Fact: Obama, when referring to savings he can make by leaving Iraq ($90 billion, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates), has spent these savings several times over, across several different promises depending on the crowd he's addressing.

Most of the time he spends the Iraq savings in the context of the roads he wants to build; sometimes it's for the teachers he wants to hire. Tonight, he riffed rhetorically on the savings, asking how many scholarships could be funded, or how many schools could be built. In the end though, presuming he really saves $90 billion, he can only spend it once.

Remember he also mentioned rebuilding the military ($7 billion/yr); his education initiative ($18 billion/yr); and his energy initiative ($15 billion/yr). He did not mention the $188 billion that he would spend on the brand new stimulus package he has proposed.

If he closes every loophole as promised, saves every dime from Iraq, raises taxes on the rich and trims the federal budget as he's promised to do "line by line," he still doesn't pay for his list. If he's elected, the first fact hitting his desk will be the figure projecting how much less of a budget he has to work with - thanks to the recession. He gave us a very compelling vision with his ad buy tonight. What he did not give us was any hint of the cold reality he's facing or a sense of how he might prioritize his promises if voters trust him with the White House.


By Wyatt Andrews
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[BlueWahooChambordDevil]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1
Obama's prime-time ad skips over budget realities

Oct 29 09:47 PM US/Eastern
By CALVIN WOODWARD
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office.
Obama's assertion that "I've offered spending cuts above and beyond" the expense of his promises is accepted only by his partisans. His vow to save money by "eliminating programs that don't work" masks his failure throughout the campaign to specify what those programs are"?beyond the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

A sampling of what voters heard in the ad, and what he didn't tell them:

THE SPIN: "That's why my health care plan includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year."

THE FACTS: His plan does not lower premiums by $2,500, or any set amount. Obama hopes that by spending $50 billion over five years on electronic medical records and by improving access to proven disease management programs, among other steps, consumers will end up saving money. He uses an optimistic analysis to suggest cost reductions in national health care spending could amount to the equivalent of $2,500 for a family of four. Many economists are skeptical those savings can be achieved, but even if they are, it's not a certainty that every dollar would be passed on to consumers in the form of lower premiums.

___

THE SPIN: "I've offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost."

THE FACTS: Independent analysts say both Obama and Republican John McCain would deepen the deficit. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates Obama's policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years"?and that analysis accepts the savings he claims from spending cuts. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, whose other findings have been quoted approvingly by the Obama campaign, says: "Both John McCain and Barack Obama have proposed tax plans that would substantially increase the national debt over the next 10 years." The analysis goes on to say: "Neither candidate's plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified."

___

THE SPIN: "Here's what I'll do. Cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year. Give businesses a tax credit for every new employee that they hire right here in the U.S. over the next two years and eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Help homeowners who are making a good faith effort to pay their mortgages, by freezing foreclosures for 90 days. And just like after 9-11, we'll provide low-cost loans to help small businesses pay their workers and keep their doors open. "

THE FACTS: His proposals"?the tax cuts, the low-cost loans, the $15 billion a year he promises for alternative energy, and more"?cost money, and the country could be facing a record $1 trillion deficit next year. Indeed, Obama recently acknowledged"?although not in his commercial"?that: "The next president will have to scale back his agenda and some of his proposals."

___

THE SPIN: "I also believe every American has a right to affordable health care."

THE FACTS: That belief should not be confused with a guarantee of health coverage for all. He makes no such promise. Obama hinted as much in the ad when he said about the problem of the uninsured: "I want to start doing something about it." He would mandate coverage for children but not adults. His program is aimed at making insurance more affordable by offering the choice of government-subsidized coverage similar to that in a plan for federal employees and other steps, including requiring larger employers to share costs of insuring workers.

___

THE SPIN: "We are currently spending $10 billion a month in Iraq, when they have a $79 billion surplus. It seems to me that if we're going to be strong at home as well as strong abroad that we've got to look at bringing that war to a close." These lines in the ad were taken from a debate with McCain.

THE FACTS: Obama was once and very often definitive about getting combat troops out in 16 months (At times during the primaries, he promised to do so within a year). More recently, without backing away explicitly from the 16-month withdrawal pledge, he has talked of the need for flexibility. In the primaries, it would have been a jarring departure for him to have said merely that "we've got to look at" ending the war. As for Iraq's surplus, it's true that Iraq could end up with a surplus that large, but that hasn't happened yet.

[R13]

What did Mccain cover in his ad last night?