Obama on Negative Attacks: "You Can't Just Make Stuff Up"

Obama on Negative Attacks: "You Can't Just Make Stuff Up"

Guy Benson

Posted at 2:43 PM ET, 8/20/2012

The President of the United States finally deigned to take a few questions from the White House press corps this afternoon, making a surprise appearance in the briefing room.  His primary goal seemed to be to jump on the large and growing condemnation bandwagon of Rep. Todd Akin, following the Senate candidate's indefensible comments on rape.  (He should get in line; prominent conservatives are beginning to ask Akin to leave the race, and the NRSC is reportedly applying similar pressure).  My two biggest take-aways from the presser:

(1) This quote: "In terms of the economy...[pause, audible sigh]."  He then launched into a rambling answer, littered with straw men.  That groan and hesitation will likely make its way into a television ad or two.

(2) Barack Obama is 100 percent comfortable with the tone, tenor and focus of his campaign.  Pressed on its incessant attacks, Obama denied that the smears have even occurred ("Nobody accused Mr. Romney of being a felon!" -- rebuttals here andhere), instructed reporters that only his words matter on this subject (subtext: my surrogates, allies and running mate shouldn't really reflect on me), and whined about the Romney campaign's (!) nastiness.  In defending his formally-endorsed SuperPAC, he conjured up Democrats' go-to false equivalency between the group's outrageous 'cancer' ad and the Romney campaign's slightly exaggerated but broadly accuratewelfare attacks.  In shamelessly complaining that Romney is really the one relying on negative and false attacks, the president made this statement:
 

 

"You can't just make stuff up."

He also breezily denied that his re-election effort has gone "out of bounds" in assailing Mitt Romney.  This from a man whose campaign has invoked cancer and slavery to attack the GOP ticket, not to mention the aforementioned felony and tax cheat allegations (which Obama now claims never happened).  Lesson: There are no political boundaries in Chicago-style politics.  Obama reiterated his calls for Romney to release his tax returns, and suggested that the country should see his medical records, too.  He argued that presidential candidates' lives should be, ahem, "an open book."  Does that book include composite characters?  I'll leave you with a humble suggestion: Watch that clip again, then read this.

UPDATE - Here's the Romney campaign's rapid response video to Obama's 'felony' dodge, starring...guess who?
 

UPDATE II - Here's another fun stroll down Obama's memory lane, this time on outside groups:
 

 

Obama Blasts Medicare Cuts to Fund New Healthcare Program

Pure Gold: Obama Blasts Medicare Cuts to Fund New Healthcare Program

Guy Benson

Posted at 10:16 AM ET, 8/21/2012

We generally try to reserve the "pure gold" label for truly irresistible instances of flagrant hypocrisy and irony.  To wit, our last usage came while flagging a clip of President Obama ripping into President Bush's "unpatriotic" accumulation of $4 Trillion in debt over eight years ... just after Obama eclipsed the $4 Trillion mark himself after just two-and-a-half years on the job.  That reminder seems especially relevant this week, since we now find ourselves on the precipice of blowing past the $16 trillion national debt mark.  It'll probably happen by week's end.  In any case, and without further ado, here's candidate Barack Obama in 2008 informing voters about John McCain's risky and dangerous Medicare-slashing vision for healthcare reform:
 

"It turns out that Senator McCain would pay for part of his plan by making drastic cuts in Medicare!  (Boos) $882 Billion worth. (Boos) $882 billion in Medicare cuts to pay for an ill-conceived, badly-thought-through healthcare plan...even though Medicare is already facing a looming shortfall...If you rely on Medicare, it would mean fewer places to get care, and less freedom to choose your own doctors."

It's uncanny, isn't it?  Four years hence, the Republican ticket has managed to swipe this potent attack from Obama's arsenal because the president's own plan is now doing precisely -- and I mean precisely -- what he warned about four years ago.   Allow me to update and paraphrase:
 

This president has paid for part of his plan by making drastic cuts to Medicare. $716 Billion worth.  $716 Billion in Medicare cuts to pay for an ill-conceived, badly-thought-through Obamacare plan.  If you rely on Medicare, it will mean fewer places to get care, and less freedom to choose your own doctors. 

Lefty "fact-checkers" are tripping over one another to declare this Romney/Ryan criticism of The One a "myth" (in a stunningly deceitful piece) and "half true," but Obama cannot escape the empirical fact that he has, in fact, cut hundreds of billions from a program "already facing a looking shortfall" in order to fund his unpopular, unaffordable and destructive Obamacare power grab.  Team Obama can scream "lie!" until they're blue in the face.  That won't change the reality that President Obama has admitted to these Medicare cuts on national television, and that his Deputy Campaign manager touted the cuts as a presidential "achievement" as recently as last week.  The new Lefty spin is that the Medicare cuts aren't really "cuts" per se, because (a) they merely reduce the rate of increase in Medicare spending (which liberals always label as cuts -- see the video above), and (b) they won't affect Medicare beneficiaries anyway.  On the first point, welcome to our world, Lefties.  Live by "cut" demagoguery, die by "cut" demagoguery.  Tough.  As for the second item, it's simply not true.  But don't take my word for it; listen to the non-partisan government actuaries who spelled this out plainly throughout the Obamacare debate.  Here's the chief Medicare actuary, Richard Foster, admonishing Congress about Obamacare's impact on seniors back in 2010:
 

Providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries). Simulations by the Office of the Actuary suggest that roughly 15 percent of Part A providers would become unprofitable within the 10-year projection period as a result of the productivity adjustments.

 

In short, one out of every six hospitals and nursing homes that primarily serve Medicare recipients would go out of business, due to Obamacare's Medicare cuts.  Those are cuts to current seniors.  Now let's check in with Congressional Budget Office director Doug Elmendorf, who issued this warning in 2009:

 

Congress' chief budget officer on Tuesday contradicted President Barack Obama's oft-stated claim that seniors wouldn't see their Medicare benefits cut under a health care overhaul. The head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, told senators that seniors in Medicare's managed care plans could see reduced benefits under a bill in the Finance Committee. The bill would cut payments to the Medicare Advantage plans by more than $100 billion over 10 years. Elmendorf said the changes "would reduce the extra benefits that would be made available to beneficiaries through Medicare Advantage plans."

 

We now know that four million current seniors are expected to lose their Medicare Advantage, thanks to the Obamacare cuts.  FactCheck.org also dismissed Obama's promise that today's seniors would be unaffected by his Medicare axe as "fiction" in 2010.  Again, these cuts and savings weren't deposited into the Medicare trust fund to help shore up our nation's faltering promise to seniors.  They were double-counted to partially pay for a brand new, gigantic entitlement program.  That's the only way Obama had a prayer of assuring Americans Obamacare wouldn't add to the deficit with a straight face.  That "deficit neutral" fantasy hasn't come to fruition either, of course, but the Medicare cut double-counting was a key to the charade at the time.  This comes as no surprise to Congressional Democrats, who repeatedly voted downRepublican efforts to prevent the Medicare cuts from occurring in the first place.  The president and his allies are beginning to reap what they sowed during their reckless Obamacare rush.  A new messaging memo from the NRCC draws a roadmap for GOP candidates to take the fight to their opponents on this topic, with internal polling reinforcing the Republican position.  National Journal reports:
 

Adding credence to the GOP's case: Polls conducted in 28 battleground districts for the National Republican Congressional Committee, obtained byNational Journal, which suggest Republicans aren't as vulnerable on the Medicare debate as the conventional wisdom suggests.  Their pollsters tested both the Republican message on Ryan's plan (Ryan's plan doesn't touch anyone over 55, preserves Medicare for future generations, invokes ObamaCare), and the Democratic message against it (end Medicare as we know it through voucher system, seniors pay more out of pocket, rates will go up).  When the results of all 28 polls were aggregated together, the GOP argument prevailed 46 to 36 percent.

 

With Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan leading the charge, even mainstream media sources are beginning to recognize that this fight is shaping up to be a lot tougher than Obama had expected.  Remember this egregious banner headline from the Miami Heraldjust after Paul Ryan was selected as Romney's running mate?  The same newspaper ran a follow-up story on its front page this past weekend:

 

In a switch, Obama on the defensive over Medicare cuts; The unpopular Medicare cuts in Obamacare are making it easier for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to combat the president's attacks...

"The unpopular Medicare cuts in Obamacare:" Not what the Obama campaign was hoping for, but music to the Republican ticket's ears.  I'll leave you with the latest web ad from Team Romney, going straight for the jugular:
 

 

Romney’s present, Ryan’s future

Charles Krauthammer

Opinion Writer

Vice-presidential picks are always judged by their effect on the coming election. They rarely have any.

They haven’t had a decisive influence since Lyndon Johnson carried Texas for John Kennedy in 1960. (That and Illinois put Kennedy over the top.) This time, however, the effect could be significant. The Democrats’ Mediscare barrage is already in full swing. Paul Ryan, it seems, is determined to dispossess Grandmother, then toss her over a cliff. If the charge is not successfully countered, good-bye Florida.

Republicans have a twofold answer. First, hammer home that their Medicare plan affects no one over 55, let alone 65. Second, go on offense. Point out that PresidentObama cuts Medicare by $700 billion to finance Obamacare.

It’s a sweet judo throw: Want to bring up Medicare, supposedly our weakness? Fine. But now you’ve got to debate Obamacare, your weakness — and explain why you are robbing Granny’s health care to pay for your pet project.

If Mitt Romney and Ryan can successfully counterattack Mediscare, the Ryan effect becomes a major plus. Because:

(a) Ryan nationalizes the election and makes it ideological, reprising the 2010 dynamic that delivered a “shellacking” to the Democrats.

(b) If the conversation is about big issues, Obama cannot hide from his dismal economic record and complete failure of vision. In Obama’s own on-camera commercial — “the choice . . . couldn’t be bigger” — what’s his big idea? A 4.6-point increase in the marginal tax rate of 2 percent of the population.

That’s it? That’s his program? For a country with stagnant growth, ruinous debt and structural problems crying out for major entitlement and tax reform? Obama’s “plan” would cut the deficit from $1.20 trillion to $1.12 trillion. It’s a joke.

(c) Image. Ryan, fresh and 42, brings youth, energy and vitality — the very qualities Obama projected in 2008 and has by now depleted. “Hope and change” has become “the other guy killed a steelworker’s wife.” From transcendence to the political gutter in under four years. A new Olympic record.

While Ryan’s effect on 2012 is as yet undetermined — it depends on the success or failure of Mediscare — there is less doubt about the meaning of Ryan’s selection for beyond 2012. He could well become the face of Republicanism for a generation.

There’s a history here. By choosing George H.W. Bush in 1980, Ronald Reagan gave birth to a father-son dynasty that dominated the presidential scene for three decades. The Bush name was on six of seven consecutive national tickets.

When Dwight Eisenhower picked Richard Nixon in 1952, he turned a relatively obscure senator into a dominant national figure for a quarter-century, appearing on the presidential ticket in five of six consecutive elections.

Even losing VP candidates can ascend to party leader and presumptive presidential nominee. Ed Muskie so emerged in 1968, until he melted down in New Hampshire in 1972. Walter Mondale so emerged in 1980 and won the presidential nomination four years later. (The general election was another story.)

Winning is even better. Forty percent of 20th-century presidents were former VPs: Theodore Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Bush (41).

Before Aug. 11, Ryan already was the party’s intellectual leader and de facto parliamentary leader — youngest-ever House Budget Committee chairman whose fiscal blueprint has driven congressional debate for two years. Now, however, he is second only to Romney as the party’s undisputed political leader.

And while Romney is the present, Ryan is the future. Romney’s fate will be determined on Nov. 6. Ryan’s presence, assuming he acquits himself well in the campaign, will extend for decades.

Ryan’s importance is enhanced by his identity as a movement conservative. Reagan was the first movement leader in modern times to achieve the presidency. Like him, Ryan represents a new kind of conservatism for his time.

Reagan rejected the moderate accommodationism represented by Gerald Ford, the sitting president Reagan nearly overthrew in 1976. Ryan represents a new constitutional conservatism of limited government and individual opportunity that carried Republicans to victory in 2010, not just as a rejection of Obama’s big-government hyper-liberalism but also as a significant departure from the philosophically undisciplined, idiosyncratically free-spending “compassionate conservatism” of Obama’s Republican predecessor.

Ryan’s role is to make the case for a serious approach to structural problems — a hardheaded, sober-hearted conservatism that puts to shame a reactionary liberalism that, with Greece in our future, offers handouts, bromides and a 4.6 percent increase in tax rates.

If Ryan does it well, win or lose in 2012, he becomes a dominant national force. Mild and moderate Mitt Romney will have shaped the conservative future for years to come.

The cunning of history. Or if you prefer, its sheer capriciousness.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

MediScare returns

But something has to change

Last Updated: 12:35 AM, August 15, 2012

Posted: 10:39 PM, August 14, 2012

Mitt Romney’s naming of Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate has moved the debate over Medicare reform back to the political forefront. As everyone in range of a TV knows by now, Ryan is the author of the “Ryan budget” that “ends Medicare as we know it.”

According to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, the plan “would kill people. No question.” Democratic consultant Paul Begala calls it “deeply evil.” Ryan’s plan, warns Obama’s campaign chairman, David Axlerod, would throw his 85-year-old, cancer-stricken father off Medicare.

If the Democrats are this hysterical already, what can we expect by Election Day? Ads showing Ryan throwing a wheelchair-bound grandmother off a cliff? Oh, wait . . .

GETTY IMAGES

Ryan: Unlike President Obama, has ideas for saving Medicare from financial disaster.

But here’s a fact: No matter who wins this November, “Medicare as we know it” is doomed.

According to Medicare’s trustees, the program ran a combined deficit of more than $288 billion last year. Going forward, the most optimistic estimate puts Medicare’s future unfunded liabilities at more than $38.6 trillion. More realistic projections suggest the shortfall could actually top $90 trillion.

To put this in perspective, the total wealth of every American earning more than $1 million totals roughly $11 trillion. So we could confiscate every penny belonging to every millionaire and billionaire in America and still cover less than a third of Medicare’s red ink, even using the lowest estimate for its unfunded liabilities. There is no way to fix Medicare’s finances just by raising taxes on the rich.

Faced with this reality, Ryan has put forward a plan, co-sponsored by liberal Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), to restructure Medicare for today’s younger workers.

This is an important point. The Ryan plan wouldn’t make any changes to Medicare for anyone age 55 or older today. Given the perilous state of Medicare’s finances, it probably should include current seniors, but it doesn’t. No one on Medicare now gets thrown off the program, forced to pay more or has his benefits cut. Axlerod’s dad is safe.

Even those under age 55 would still have the option to stay in conventional Medicare if they wish. But the growth in spending under traditional Medicare would be capped at the growth in the economy plus 1 percent. This likely means a reduction in future benefits, but what those cuts would be aren’t specified.

For those who want another option, insurance companies would bid for the right to participate under Medicare. Plans would have to include certain minimum benefits and accept all applicants, regardless of age or current health.

Hypocrisy is Not the Word

Posted by Daniel Horowitz (Diary)

Wednesday, August 15th at 9:03PM EDT

Amidst the immediate aftermath of last year’s shooting in Tucson, Arizona and this year’s massacre in Aurora, Colorado, some liberal media figures attempted to pin the violence on “right wing extremists,” the Tea Party, and even Sarah Palin.  This, despite the fact that it was clear within a few hours of both attacks that the shooters were deranged and had no coherent political motive.  Then, when the labeling failed to stick, they blamed the attacks on our “loose gun laws” put in place by conservatives.

Today, a gunman entered the building that houses the Family Research Council in Washington and attempted to gun down those working there.  Thanks to the heroic actions of the security guard, Leo Johnson, the suspect was apprehended with nobody else hurt except for himself.  Leo was shot in the arm before he tackled the suspect.

Here’s what we know about the attack at present.  A 28-year old man reportedly named Floyd Corkins II, who volunteered at some homosexual/transgendered community center, entered the office building of the most prominent social conservative organization; he was carrying a Chick-Fil-A bag; and Fox News reports that he said the following after the security guard apprehended him: “Don’t shoot me, it was not about you, it was what this place stands for.”

How do you think the media would react if someone walked into the most prominent gay rights political organization with a Ben and Jerry’s bag (to make a statement) and said “Don’t shoot me, it was not about you, it was what this place stands for?”  It would be headline news for a week and there would be calls to tamp down conservative political speech and activities.  Yet, in this case, there is barely any reporting on the incident outside of Fox News and conservative media outlets.

Unlike in previous shootings, this one was clearly motivated, in part, by political convictions.  Will anyone blame the Democrat politicians and media for stirring up hatred towards Chick-Fil-A and clearly inspiring this shooter to some extent?  Will anyone blame the extremist defamatory Southern Poverty Law[less] Center for recently labeling FRC as a hate group?  Just today, a gay rights website (I won’t link to it) posted the names of those who signed the Maryland marriage referendum petition along with their addresses.  In light of the vitriolic behavior of the homosexual mafia, should we have reason for concern?

These are the questions the media would be asking if the shoe were on the other foot.

Parting question: How on earth was this individual armed with a handgun?  Doesn’t he know that concealed carry is prohibited in DC?  That’s what makes DC so safe.

President Obama in 2009 Pledged to Veto Attempts to Undo Medicare Cuts

As Democrats attack Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan for their proposals regarding Medicare, Republicans are circulating this clip from a November 9, 2009 interview we had with President Obama in which he not only acknowledged that one third of his health care bill was paid for by cuts to Medicare, but that he would veto attempts to undo those cuts.

Watch the video below. The exchange on Medicare occurs at 2:15:

TAPPER: One of the concerns about health care and how you pay for it — one third of the funding comes from cuts to Medicare.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: “Right.

TAPPER: A lot of times, as you know, what happens in Congress is somebody will do something bold and then Congress, close to election season, will undo it.

OBAMA: Right.

TAPPER: You saw that with the ‘doc fix.’

OBAMA: Right.

TAPPER: Are you willing to pledge that whatever cuts in Medicare are being made to fund health insurance, one third of it, that you will veto anything that tries to undo that?

OBAMA: Yes. I actually have said that it is important for us to make sure this thing is deficit neutral, without tricks. I said I wouldn’t sign a bill that didn’t meet that criteria. The full transcript of the interview can be read here.

-Jake Tapper

The Democrats’ Growing Medicare Dilemma

By Yuval Levin

In the last few days, the Romney campaign has moved to dramatically change the terrain of Medicare politics, and it looks like the Democrats are beginning to realize how vulnerable they might be. Because of Obamacare, it is the Democrats who now plan to cut current seniors’ benefits (especially those in Medicare Advantage) and access to care (thanks to the IPAB) while still failing to avert the program’s (and the nation’s) fiscal collapse, and because Romney would repeal Obamacare and pursue a version of the Ryan-Wyden premium-support reform it is the Republicans who would protect current seniors’ benefits and make them available to future seniors while saving the program from collapse through market reforms. Through the candidates’ statements this week and through this new ad, Romney and Ryan have made clear they’re going to inform voters about this and force the Democrats to defend themselves on Medicare.

That won’t be easy for the Left, since the Romney campaign’s charges are true, and it is beginning to become apparent that the Democrats are totally unprepared for the coming fight. Their defenses so far fall into roughly three categories: Ryan did it too, the Obamacare Medicare cuts aren’t very serious, and finally what can only be called frantic distractions. Even as pure demagoguery (let alone as efforts at actual substantive arguments) all three are exceptionally weak defenses, and suggest the Democrats could be in serious trouble. Let’s examine each one.

The “Ryan did it too” defense is perhaps the most amusing of the three, as it succeeds in being simultaneously untrue, irrelevant, and an admission of the basic charge against the Democrats. Even as they call Paul Ryan a cruel and merciless budget cutter who cares not for the weather service and would gladly see children exposed to E. coli, the Democrats justify their taking $710 billion out of Medicare and spending it on Obamacare over the next decade by pointing out that Paul Ryan didn’t put that money back into Medicare in his budget. So if he had, would that have made their cuts unjustifiable? Well it so happens that he did. By repealing all of Obamacare’s spending, the Republican budget does not spend the money Obamacare took out of Medicare and thus those funds are used to extend the Medicare trust fund. And this point is hardly hidden in the Ryan budget. The budget document spells it out in its spending tables and also explains it in its narrative section, noting on page 54 that:

This budget ends the raid on the Medicare trust fund that began with passage of the new health care law last year. It ensures that any potential savings in current law would go to shore up Medicare, not to pay for new entitlements. In addition to repealing the health care law’s new rationing board and its unfunded long-term care entitlement, this budget stabilizes plan choices for current seniors.

That Ryan and other House Republicans saw this undoing of the raid on Medicare as essentially no different than just not taking the money out in the first place is evidenced by the fact that all of them (including Ryan) also voted twice (once before the first Ryan budget was adopted and once just a month ago, on July 11th) to flat-out undo the Obamacare cuts, in exactly the way that Romney proposes to do.

And most importantly, there has never been any doubt about Romney’s intentions—so even if they were genuinely unclear about how the Ryan budget undoes Obamacare’s raid on Medicare, the Democrats couldn’t be unclear about how Romney would do it, and he’s the presidential candidate. Obviously his view is the view of the ticket, and of a Romney administration should there be one.

The second Democratic defense, the “it’s not so bad” defense, suggests the Democrats don’t grasp just how the fee-for-service design of Medicare that they’re eager to retain forever actually works. The basic argument the Democrats are trying to make is that because the cuts consist mostly of reductions in provider payments, they’re not actually cuts to benefits that seniors get but only to money given to the people who provide them with coverage or care. So, for instance, the New York Times today quotesa White House spokeswoman saying these cuts “do not cut a single guaranteed Medicare benefit.” But in a fee-for-service system, cuts to fees are cuts to services, especially because administrative price controls create supply shortages, which means seniors will have fewer options and less access. That’s exactly why the way to reform Medicare is through market competition—which increases options and seeks an equilibrium between supply and demand—rather than yet more administrative price controls.

Health-care providers have to make a profit to survive, they’re not just cows to be milked by Medicare. And blunt reductions in payment rates within a very inefficient fee-for-service system that stands in the way of real productivity improvements mean that these providers just won’t be able to keep treating Medicare patients. The actuaries of the Medicare program itself (who work for Barack Obama) have made it clear that they think taking $710 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare is likely to create serious problems for current seniors, writing shortly after the law was enacted that:

providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries). Simulations by the Office of the Actuary suggest that roughly 15 percent of Part A providers would become unprofitable within the 10-year projection period as a result of the productivity adjustments.

So no big deal: We’ll just drive one in six hospitals that treats seniors out of business, but in return younger people will get to lose the coverage they now have and be dumped into Obamacare exchanges. Everyone’s a winner.

The final Democratic defense I include mostly for comic relief. It consists of just throwing out unrelated claims and numbers in the hope of drowning out the basic argument. The best instance is this simply wonderful tirade sent out by the Center for American Progress yesterday, which at first just makes the “Ryan did it too” and “it’s not so bad” arguments, then repeats the notion that the Romney-Ryan premium-support reform would shift costs to seniors, which is just plain false, and then concludes with what it calls a “handy inforgraphic” which I think I’m just going to have to print out and hang on my wall. It acknowledges that Obamacare makes those $716 billion in cuts, but then says the Romney plan would cut $2 trillion “in total cuts between 2014 and 2020” and that “instead of keeping those savings in health care” it would “divert money away from Medicare programs” and give tax breaks to the wealthy and increase seniors’ costs. This doesn’t even qualify as wrong—it simply bears no relation to reality. The $2 trillion number, as best I can figure, is an estimate of the amount of spending Romney would cut over the entire budget during those six years (he would spend $2 trillion less than Obama in that time, which isn’t saying much), but has nothing to do with Medicare. The idea that any of it is diverted “away from Medicare programs” is simply untrue, as are the now familiar fantasy about tax cuts for the rich and the falsehood about shifting costs to seniors. Just bizarre.

This last approach is a particularly clear indication that some on the Left are getting worried about their Medicare problem. And so they should be. Romney obviously won’t win this election on Medicare—though he has a very good plan for fixing it. Voters are far more worried about jobs and the economy. But the Democrats were counting on a Medicare onslaught to lift their chances this fall since they can’t exactly run on jobs and the economy. Their chances of mounting such an onslaught grow increasingly unlikely the more that voters realize that Republicans offer a better approach both for current seniors and for future ones.

A real market reform would allow us to leave those seniors already in the program where they are and enable future ones to use their Medicare benefits to drive competition and improve quality while lowering costs across the American health-care system. The Democrats’ approach makes Medicare’s problems worse in order to make the larger system’s problems worse.

I guess they’ll just have to run on taxing and spending.

http://obamalies.net/list-of-lies

Below is a list of Obama’s documented lies so far with the most recent lies first. If you see we are missing a documented lie Submit the lie here.

Lies During Third Year

I will walk on that picket line with you, if workers are denied the right to bargain.
Youtube

In his 2012 State of the Union Address, President Obama said that American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years.
www.breitbart.com

I’ve done more for Israel’s security than any President ever
Obama aided Islamic Extremists take over of Egypt/ Libya – Weapons pour into Gaza

Virtually every Senate Republican voted against the tax cut last week
Examiner

“Every idea that we’ve put forward are ones that traditionally have been supported by Democrats and Republicans alike.”
Like Raising taxes?

Obama met highly qualified out of work teacher Robert Baroz
He wasn’t out of work and Obama never met him.

GOP Responsible for Obama Jobs Bill Not Passing
Dems Rejected Jobs Bill

You have 80 percent of the American people who support a balanced approach. Eighty percent of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts. So the notion that somehow the American people aren’t sold is not the problem
Gallup Poll: Only 69%

These are obligations that the United States has taken on in the past. Congress has run up the credit card, and we now have an obligation to pay our bills.
Looks like it’s been incurred mostly in the years of Obama

Jobs Bill Paid for
Seems not so much Paid for

Then you’ve got their(GOP)which is dirtier air, dirtier water, less people with health insurance
Barack Obama, campaiging in Asheville, NC, 10/17/11

I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven’t resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.
American.com

USA producing more oil than ever before
Petroleum Insights

Fence between US and Mexico is “Practically Complete”
Department of Homeland Security says 5%

Rich doesn’t pay their fair share.
National Taxpayers Union

Mitt Romney would deny gay people the right to adopt children. 
Cnn Interview 
 

Lies During Second Year

Obama claimed the SCOTUS decision in Citizens United v. FEC, “open[ed] the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.
nationalreview.com

No signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law
Obama Lies to Keep Czars

No “boots” on the ground Libya
Anyone that has worked with the AC-130 gunship can tell you, you need spotters to let aircraft know where the targets are.  Usually it is Special Forces, Rangers etc trained for this mission. It’s CIA Agents in Libya on the ground

Reform will also rein in the abuse and excess that nearly brought down our financial system. It will finally bring transparency to the kinds of complex, risky transactions that helped trigger the financial crisis.
Obama Lies About Financial Reform Bill

All Americans WILL BE were, “surprised, disappointed and angry” about lockerbie bomber
Obama Memo

I will not rest until the BP Oil Spill stops
Obama’s Schedule

The health care bill will not increase the deficit by one dime.
Campaign and Presidency

If you like the health care plan you have you can keep it
TownHall

“Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.”
U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C., September 9, 2009.

ObamaCare Fee is not a new tax
Obama denies healthcare is a new tax on all Americans

We have run out of places in the US to drill for oil.
Obama’s oval office speech in June 2010

Now suddenly if you don’t have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you can be harassed, that’s something that could potentially happen.
Arizona Immigration Law

Doctors choose amputation because they get better compensation. Greedy Doctors taking out tonsils for more money.
Claims never documented

The Health Care Package will pay for itself
Time

Republicans don’t have a single idea that’s different from George Bush’s ideas — not one.
Hmm Immigration?

We shouldn’t Mandate the purchase of health care
Democratic Debate Lies

Obama says he’ll save average family $8,000 in gas
Video Proof

I am immediately instituting PayGo “Pay as you go”
Said during a speech immediately after the Trillion Dollar “Shovel Ready” bill.

I got the Message from Massachusetts
Daily Bail

Lies During First Year

We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs.” – caught cooking the books and now changed to ‘jobs supported’ versus ‘created/saved’
AP fact Checker

Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit. … That wasn’t me.” – Congress, under Democratic control in 2007 and 2008, controlled the purse strings that led to the deficit Obama inherited.Obama supported the emergency bailout package in Bush’s final months — a package Democratic leaders wanted to make bigger.
AP fact Checker

Collective salvation
Obama calls himself a Christian

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Obama Inauguration. 20 Jan 2009

Cut Deficit in Half by end of first term
Associated Press Video

Health Care deals will be covered on C-span
Obama Lies

As President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide
ABC

Recovery Act will save or create jobs
ABC News

Unemployment rate will be 8.5% without stimulus.
Obama Lies

No Earmarks in the $787 Billion Stimulus
CNN

I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care plan
Specator.Org

We have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages.
Obama Lies

I am not somebody who promotes same-sex marriage.
NPR

Guantanamo bay to be closed within a year
Council on Foreign Relations.

Won’t Raise taxes on those making less than 250,000 per year.
Businessweek: Obama Agnostic on taxes
List of Tax Promise Violations

2008 Campaign Lies

I will walk the picket line with you, if workers are denied the right to bargain 
Youtube

No more wiretapping of citizens
Youtube

Mr. Ayers as “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” but “not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.
News Busters

I had a uncle who was one of the, who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Obama campaign would accept public funding
ABC

Minimum Wage will increase to $9.50/hr
A Socialist

Ann Dunham spent the months before her death in 1995 fighting with insurance companies that sought to deny her the coverage she needed to pay for treatment.
Mounting Heath Care Lies

Didn’t know Jeremiah Wright was Radical
Dreams of My Father – A radical Socialist.

Would have the most transparent administration in History
Cato Institute

We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way.
Boston Globe

I have visited all 57 states.
Snopes

I’ll get rid of earmarks
Source: Any bill passed during presidency

When a bill lands on my Desk, The American people will have 5 days to review it before I sign it.
Campaign Speech

My father served in World War II.
The Videos and the Facts

Have troops out of Iraq by March 31, 2009
News Video

Seniors Making less than 50,000 will not have to pay taxes
YouTube

Would not vote for any bill supporting troop funding without a firm withdrawal commitment from the Bush Administration.
He has done nothing but continue the Bush admins strategy and to explain how the “surges total failure” has now become his greatest achievement.

Present Votes Are Common In Illinois
NPR

I Won Michigan
Huffington Post

I won Nevada
The Nation

I don’t Have Lobbyists
US News

My Campaign Had Nothing To Do With The 1984 Ad
Crooks and Liars

I Have Always Been Against Iraq
Washington Post

My Wife Didn’t Mean What She Said About Pride In Country
CNN

Barack was never an ACORN trainer and never worked for ACORN in any other capacity.
Obama Campaign Video

I Barely Know Rezko
Sun Times

My Church Is Like Any Other Christian Church
ABC News

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