Obama's List of Flip-Flops Grows and Grows
By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
President Obama is compiling a long and growing list of increasingly important flip-flops on critical U.S. policies. But this week's is a doozy among doozies. He is now urging passage of a law enacting PAYGO as a budgetary requirement some four months after sending Congress the most oversized budget ever amassed by a president.
PAYGO means that Congress can't spend a new dollar without cutting a dollar out of the budget somewhere else. On Monday at the White House, Mr. Obama tried to adopt the PAYGO mantra as his own. But actually House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had required the U.S. House to budget along PAYGO lines before Mr. Obama's presidential candidacy was being taken seriously.
My colleague Ken Walsh, who covers the White House for USNews.com, has compiled a partial list of Obama flips, as follows:
- He once promised Planned Parenthood that his first act as president would be to sign an abortion-rights bill into law. Now he says it is "not my highest legislative priority."
- He pledged to gay activists that he would repeal the military's "don't ask, don't tell'' policy, which allows gays to serve in the armed forces if they don't reveal their sexual preference...Instead, he has delayed any action to change the system.
- While he released previously classified memos describing the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques, he is now trying to legally block the release of photos showing abuse of detainees, reversing his earlier position.
Republican consultant Alex Conant adds several of his own on Politico.com.
The budget flip-flop, from profligate spender to coupon clipper, was apparently driven by new polling numbers showing the American public is starting to doubt the president's handling of the budget. A new Gallup poll shows the president enjoys a 61 percent job approval rating, but there is a growing split in public opinion, weighted against Obama on his handling of the deficit. Forty-eight percent of Americans told Gallup pollsters they disapprove of the president's approach to the deficit, while a smaller 46 percent approve.
Check out our political cartoons.
Become a political insider: Subscribe to U.S. News Weekly, our new digital magazine.
Tags: Barack Obama | Obama administration
Tools: 
Share
|
| Comments (8) | Print
Reader Comments
Xaeuullq
691FH7
Don’t believe what politicians say; watch what they do:
Obama’s attack on our free market economy began long before the current crisis. The following legal documents, news articles, and video show his part in causing this crisis over the past fifteen years. Now he uses it as an excuse to do even more damage. To him, our free enterprise system is a giant merciless beast that he and his allies have succeeded in wounding. In a free market, your choices as a consumer, select against society’s losers, which he represents. This is why the Obamabots, having won, are still seething with hatred for their opponents. Having wounded the beast they are now closing in for the kill. The recovery of our free market economy is not their objective. They would rather replace it with something else. So their policies are only making matters measurably worse. They want revenge for the unfairness they perceive in the free market.
These legal documents show Barack Obama suing Citibank under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) from 1994 to 1998, where he and other lawyers got $950,000 in legal fees without finding any evidence of wrongdoing:
http://clearinghouse.wustl.edu/chDocs/public/FH-IL-0011-9000.pdf
http://clearinghouse.wustl.edu/chDocs/public/FH-IL-0011-0007.pdf
This was part of a legalized protection racket perpetrated on our nations banks, and part of a widespread systematic shakedown, described in detail in this article published in the year 2000: "The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities":
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html
The New York Times reported on this in 2003, and explained what additional regulatory action the Bush administration tried to initiate to protect the banks, in "New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae", only to be blocked by Democrats in congress:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/11/business/new-agency-proposed-to-oversee-freddie-mac-and-fannie-mae.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
Obama, ACORN, Bill Clinton, the Clinton Administration, and members of congress explain what happened here in their own words in these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivmL-lXNy64&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJcVgJhNaU&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&feature=related
This video connects the dots:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4&feature=iv&annotation_id=event_597487
Thomas Sowell summarized it all in his column, "Do Facts Matter?":
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NGRjODM1MTJlOGZiZDk2ODI4NTUzMWMxYjgwMjliMGQ
The Washington Post provides additional detail: ("Where Was Sen. Dodd? Playing the Blame Game On Fannie and Freddie"):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091102841.html
The Wall Street Journal provides additional detail: ("Blame Fannie Mae and Congress For the Credit Mess "):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212948811465427.html
This pattern of behavior must be stopped to protect the economic future of our country.
Republicans are the KINGS of the flip-flop
So now the right wingers are AGAINST fiscal responsibility, because the President is FOR it.
They're now AGAINST Paygo?
Talk about a flip-flop.
Seriously, does the Republican Party have any principle at all? Or is their only principle opposing anything a Democrat does. They change their "principles" like I change my socks.
HERE'S a suggestion for the Republicans: Try being Americans FIRST, and try putting your country ahead of your party.
advertisement
