Obama's Lies About Government Bailout Plan
By Cliff Kincaid
January 5, 2009
Our media have been in awe of Barack Obama's physique, his workouts and basketball skills. But his lies about the proposed federal "stimulus" plan are what really deserve scrutiny.
Mike Allen of Politico.com quotes (web site) Republican consultant Frank Luntz as complimenting Obama for coming up with the deceptive phrase, "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan," to describe the largest federal spending bill in history that is mainly designed to bail out state and local governments that have already spent too much taxpayer money.
Luntz told Politico that "Obama's team are the best linguists I've ever seen. Republicans aren't in his league right now." Those "linguists" include former reporters such as David Axelrod and Linda Douglass.
Explaining the propaganda value of the bill, Luntz said, "Recovery says putting the country back on track, and reinvestment is the next step up from investment."
Our media are not going to fall for this ploy, are they?
Even before Obama unveiled the title of the bill, a Washington Post article by Michael D. Shear referred to the proposal as "a massive recovery plan for the nation's struggling economy." A New York Times article by Jackie Calmes and Carl Hulse on January 3 called it a "two-year economic recovery package."
Notice that these two major liberal papers have brazenly adopted the terminology of the Democrats as their own.
Obama's Saturday radio address, (web site) where he talked about his "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan," was as masterful as any professional magic show full of misdirection and illusions.
Explaining why we must spend more federal money and go further into debt, an approach that could spark hyperinflation and even national bankruptcy, Obama said that "We must make strategic investments that will serve as a down payment on our long-term economic future." He declared that "this plan must be designed in a new way--we can't just fall into the old Washington habit of throwing money at the problem." Yet this is precisely what his plan does.
Obama says that "we must restore fiscal responsibility and make the tough choices so that as the economy recovers, the deficit starts to come down." The deficit will be increased so that it can eventually "come down?" This is strange logic sometimes called "doublespeak" but also known as lying.
Taking this reckless and dangerous approach one step further, Obama says that, rather than cost money, the spending and debt program will "save" money and "help reduce health care costs by billions of dollars each year." For too many families, "debts continue to mount," he says. So the answer is for the federal government to go further into debt and pass on these costs to those who pay the bills―those same families. This will "save" us money?
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