I know what you’re thinking – just seven? Actually most of Obama’s speech was filled with the same old platitudes and empty rhetoric that bellows out of all politicians, right or left. Here are seven lies he told.
1) Income inequality is the worst it’s ever been!
Obama sayeth, “[T]oday, after four years of economic growth, corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better. But average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled. The cold, hard fact is that even in the midst of recovery, too many Americans are working more than ever just to get by; let alone to get ahead.”
There’s all sorts of wrong going on here, but here’s one of the bigger ones – “income inequality” was worse in 2000 and in 2007. But if you adjust the rate for the massive taxation the government does and the redistribution of wealth already underway, income equality is the same as it was in 1987. It’s pretty easy to make the case that the only reason Obama pretends it’s a sudden crime that needs to be addressed right now is that Obamacare is such a disaster that needs to be ignored.
2) Raising minimum wage will help families
Obama sayeth, “[We] have a bill to fix that by lifting the minimum wage to $10.10… This will help families. It will give businesses customers with more money to spend… So join the rest of the country. Say yes. Give America a raise.”
It’s not hard to believe that Obama, who has never run a business, doesn’t understand that artificially forcing a business to pay someone more than their wage is worth will put more people out of the labor market. Making job creation more expensive leads to fewer jobs.
3) His minimum wage hike for federal workers brings immediate relief
Obama sayeth, “In the coming weeks, I will issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay their federally funded employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour, because if you cook our troops’ meals or wash their dishes, you shouldn’t have to live in poverty.”
But most employees of federal contractors earn more than the minimum wage, so this will apply to only about 10% of those, or 200,000 employees. Finally, this wage hike won’t apply until 2015 at the earliest, and even then, only for new contracts, not old ones.
4) How many Americans have gained insurance under Obamacare?
Obama sayeth, “More than 9 million Americans have signed up for privatehealth insurance or Medicaid coverage.”
But in fact, five million Americans have lost insurance, meaning that this number is not a net gain. In other words, the vast majority already had insurance before Obamacare.As few as 11% might be new enrollments to Obamacare. Finally, the payment system for the federal Obamacare website isn’t completed ; who knows how many of these will experience more “glitches.”
5) Obama will cut red tape that’s holding up construction jobs!
Obama sayeth, “we’ll need Congress to protect more than 3 million jobs by finishing transportation and waterways bills this summer. But I will act on my own to slash bureaucracy and streamline the permitting process for key projects, so we can get more construction workers on the job as fast as possible.”
But what’s actually holding back these projects is lack of money, not red tape. Joshua Schank of the think tank Eno Center for Transportation explains:
“The reason most of these projects are delayed is they don’t have enough money. So it’s great that you are expediting the review process, but the review process isn’t the problem. The problem is we don’t have enough money to invest in our infrastructure in the first place.”
Perhaps if Obama hadn’t squandered what was supposed to go towards infrastructure in his stimulus bill on green energy boondoggles and other crony capitalist schemes, there might have been more money to fund these projects. Nevertheless, not only hasn’t Obama created “shovel-ready jobs,” he has actually lost 720,000 of them in the Construction field.
6) Your medicare premium went up? You’re making that up!
Obama sayeth, “because of this (health care) law, no American can ever again be dropped or denied coverage for a preexisting condition like asthma, back pain or cancer… And we did all this while adding years to Medicare’s finances, keeping Medicare premiums flat, and lowering prescription costs for millions of seniors.”
That’s simply not true:
Although the basic premium remained the same this year at $104.90, it increased by $5 a month in 2013, up from $99.90 in 2012. Obama’s health care law also raised Medicare premiums for upper-income beneficiaries, and both the president and Republicans have proposed to expand that.
On paper, the program’s giant trust fund for inpatient care gained more than a decade of solvency because of cuts to service providers required under the health law. But in practice those savings cannot simultaneously be used to expand coverage for the uninsured and shore up Medicare.
7. Obama’s created 8 million new jobs in the last four years
This figure leaves out a lot of lost jobs early in Obama’s presidency and glosses over that this recovery has been the weakest since World War II. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only a net gain of 2.4 million job have been added on Obama’s watch (this doesn’t account for population growth, leading to the lowest labor participation rate since 1978).
And just for fun…
8. Michelle is making fat kids thinner
Obama sayeth, “Michelle’s Let’s Move! partnership with schools, businesses, local leaders has helped bring down childhood obesity rates for the first time in thirty years, and that’s an achievement.” Ok, I can’t really prove this is a lie, it just sounds terribly stupid. Half of the kids in America are from families who reject the Obamas, and kids all around the country are rejecting Michelle’s crummy gruel and meager milk offerings.
Otherwise, experts cite increased breast-feeding and lower consumption of sugary drinks, which began in 1999 long before Michelle, as causes of the drop in obesity. But, if it is Michelle Obama’s doing, then she hates the poor, because most of the thinning out is among the wealthy.
You might think Obama might get into trouble for all these lies, but you’d be wrong – he’s a Democrat, remember? The media will barely mention these, or just ignore them all together. And for Americans who are too busy trying to get ahead in this terrible economy, tuning into The State of the Union address allows the president to solidify these misleading talking points in people’s minds.
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