Four Years Ago Today, Barack Obama Offered America a Pile of Empty Promises

Tomorrow night, President Barack Obama will address the nation on the subject of Syria and its alleged use of chemical weapons. He intends to use the credibility inherent in the presidency to persuade a skeptical nation that military strikes on Syria are necessary.

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But he has a major credibility problem. Four years ago today — September 9, 2009 — President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress. Presidents typically reserve addresses to joint sessions of Congress for weighty matters. National crises. War and peace.

Obama used that joint session address to speak on the “crisis” of health care.

During that speech, he told America that his health care plan would not require any change for those who already have health insurance:

Here are the details that every American needs to know about this plan. First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. (Applause.) Let me repeat this: Nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.

Reality: Obamacare’s 30-hour work week has made America a part-time nation. Forced with the choice of paying for Obamacare’s mandates or dropping insurance for their workers, many employers are dropping coverage and cutting work hours down to less than 30 hours per week. Nearly all of the jobs created during Obama’s presidency have been part-time jobs. Unemployment among the young and minorities is at crisis levels, but Obama is ignoring this crisis.

He also told America that his plan would not increase the deficit:

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And here’s what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future. (Applause.) I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period.

Reality: Obamacare adds more than $6 trillion to the deficit. Maybe. The truth is and always was, no one really knows what Obamacare will end up doing to the deficit. It is too complex a package, with too many secondary consequences, to be scored accurately.

Four years after that speech, Obamacare remains deeply unpopular. Between the delayed mandates and its impact on the jobs and health insurance picture, Obamacare is a dagger aimed at the heart of the American economy and Obama’s presidency. Because it was a pile of empty promises.

So, rather than scrap the law that clearly isn’t working, the Obama administration is going to spend 12 million taxpayer dollars advertising.

The Obama administration is readying a multimillion-dollar onslaught of ads in a dozen red states to encourage Americans to sign up for Obamacare insurance exchanges, media-tracking sources tell POLITICO.

The Center for Medicare Services at the Dept. of Health and Human Services has reserved at least $12 million in airtime starting Sept. 30 in Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Louisiana and Michigan.

Obama’s government will probably leave this out of its ads.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. Randall Gordon runs a CPA firm from home and is used to figuring out complicated problems for his clients, but a letter he just received from the state presents something he doesn’t know how to solve.

“CoverTN will not be available starting January, 1st 2014,” he read Friday.

In 2006, then-Governor Phil Bredesen signed CoverTennessee into law giving thousands of people not purged off TennCare access to some type of health care. It not only helped small business owners, but also struggling families and children.

Fast forward to today the state says the looming Affordable Care Act means the program has to go away because it doesn’t meet new federal guidelines that begin January 1st.

16,000 Tennesseans are currently enrolled.

For Gordon, who suffers from chronic back and neck problems, it means worrying about how affordable anything else will be.

“I guess that all of us have is what is it going to cost us?” he said.

On August 11, 2009, Obama said: “If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan.”

He lied. Tennessee is far from the only state to see Obamacare destroy its health care system.

Now Obama wants us to trust him on a matter of war and peace, when the efficacy of bombing Syria is questionable and it’s still debatable who used the chemical weapons on August 20. Both sides in that war are alleged to have used chemical weapons. Obama only cares about the crimes of one side. Both sides include enemies of the United States. Obama only cares about striking one side. Obama has never come clean about many serious questions, including the IRS abuse of his critics, Fast and Furious, and Benghazi (no arrests, one year later), and why he wanted pro-American Hosni Mubarak out of power in Egypt when the obvious consequence of that would be the election of the Muslim Brotherhood. His government still called the jihadist attack at Fort Hood “workplace violence.”

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On Syria he promises limited strikes and no American boots on the ground. Like his Obamacare promises, he cannot guarantee any of this. Wars have a way of growing themselves rapidly. Russia, China and Iran are backing Syria and could get drawn into war if we strike. If we strike, Syria could order Hizballah to attack Israel. Iran is threatening to unleash terrorists in Iraq if we strike. Syria itself could shoot down American aircraft, forcing rescue missions at the very least.

Barack Obama has no credibility. On any issue. Because of his own choices and tactics.

 

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