The Saran-Wrap President

posted at 11:27 am on September 8, 2009 by Howard Portnoy

Barack Obama promised during the presidential race that one of the hallmarks of his administration if (when?) he was elected would be a commitment to greater transparency. His campaign website even contained specific language to this effect:

Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.

He has of course broken this promise, along with numerous others. Yet, on some level he has made good on his promise to be transparent, if inadvertently.

Turns out the president is a much better campaigner than he is a poker player. Repeatedly, throughout his young administration, he has tipped his hand, making his true agenda quite transparent indeed to anyone willing to see through his impassioned spiel.

Thomas Sowell explores the disparity between the president’s words and deeds in his syndicated column today. Sowell notes, for example, that Obama “tried to rush Congress into passing a massive government takeover of the nation’s medical care before the August recess — for a program that would not take effect until 2013!”

It doesn’t take a degree from Harvard Law School to see through this bit of political chicanery and recognize the motivation behind it. If health care reform was so critical to the health of the flagging economy, as Obama repeatedly claimed it was, then why not have the plan become effective as soon as possible? Why postpone the date when the legislation takes effect until 2013? Surely, the plan could be set up and funded in a shorter time frame than that.

Could it be more obvious that Obama timed the effective date to occur after the 2012 election? That way, if the plan turned out to be as much a dog as his stimulus package, the American electorate wouldn’t know it until after he was re-elected.

Speaking of his stimulus package, it provides another opportunity to see through the smokescreen Obama has attempted to construct. This legislation actually succeeded in being rushed through Congress, again with warnings of the dire consequences that were sure to ensue if the bill failed to pass. What else does the stimulus package have in common with the proposed health care legislation? The funds set aside for the program will drip, rather than pour, out over a prolonged period, by which time the economy will have most likely righted itself. In the meantime, the federal government has nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars of the taxpayers’ money to play with. And with money, of course, goes power.

Cross-posted at Zombie Contentions

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