Obama's Lies About Government Bailout Plan<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
By Cliff Kincaid
 
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 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, 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 <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />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? 
 
Our media faithfully accept and report this dishonest rhetoric without any critical scrutiny. But what will the Republicans do?
 
Having rolled over for Bush and the Democrats on the $700-billion Wall Street bailout bill, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell now calls Obama's plan "the largest spending bill in the history of our country at a time when our national debt is already the largest in history."
 
The liberal blogs are calling McConnell an "obstructionist." My New Year's prediction is that this term will start finding its way into the liberal media over the next few days as the "recovery" package is being prepared for passage. The liberal media will attempt to browbeat the Republicans into submission.
"We hope," McConnell says, "that Democrats in Congress don't attempt to shut the American taxpayer out of this process by trying to pass a bill that hasn't been the subject of bipartisan review and that hasn't been available for public inspection."
 
Of course, that is precisely what happened when McConnell joined with the Democrats in passing the Wall Street bailout. That was called the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008."
 
The auto bailout bill was called the "Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act."
 
Now we get the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan."
 
Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital warns that a proposal of this kind is comparable to an individual trying to "forestall a personal recession by taking out newer, bigger loans when the old loans can't be repaid."
 
He explains, "Governments cannot create but merely redirect. When the government spends, the money has to come from somewhere. If the government doesn't have a surplus, then it must come from taxes. If taxes don't go up, then it must come from increased borrowing. If lenders won't lend, then it must come from the printing press, which is where all these bailouts are headed. But each additional dollar printed diminishes the value of those already in circulation. Something cannot be effortlessly created from nothing."
 
A resolution to be introduced at the upcoming meeting of the Republican National Committee puts the GOP on record against all of this.
 
The bank bailout bill, whose cost rose to $850 billion after Congress added pork to it, "has neither reversed the economic crisis nor protected the taxpayers, but rather has added $850 billion dollars to their tax bill and raised the national debt ceiling from $10 trillion to $11.3 trillion, which has the potential long-term effect of further weakening the economy," the resolution states.
 
While the Senate refused to go along with the auto bailout bill, the resolution notes that Bush proceeded to spend the money anyway (illegally and unconstitutionally) by taking the funds out of the bank bailout bill.
 
Now, the resolution notes, we are being presented by Obama with "a cleverly disguised Government Bailout Plan designed to bail out state and local governments by providing federal tax dollars to repair and rebuild their local infrastructure…" It will be "the biggest earmarked spending program in our Nation's history."
 
It's up to the GOP to take a stand on this resolution. But the point is that you will never catch the liberal media using the Republican language from this resolution as their own. The Obama proposal will never be described as a government bailout plan.
 
It's no wonder the liberal media are losing readers and viewers and going broke. But their Obama worship gets in the way of telling the truth about this man and his agenda. 
            Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org.