Don't know, don't care. Obama for PREZ!! nm

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By Phil Kerpen

Lie Number 1: I Won�t Tax Your Health Benefits

What Obama said on the campaign trail (Newport News, Va., October 4, 2008):

�So here�s John McCain�s radical plan in a nutshell: he taxes health care benefits for the first time in history� Well, I don�t think that�s right.�

What Obama says now:

Obama ally Sen. Max Baucus told the Washington Post that Obama is now willing to tax employer-provided health benefits. Baucus said: �Yeah, it�s something that he might consider. That was discussed. It�s on the table.�

Limiting or ending the tax-free status of health benefits makes sense if it�s used to cut other taxes and put all health insurance�employer-provided or not�on a level playing field. The existing benefit is an artifact of World War II-era price controls and creates a tax penalty for people who buy their own insurance.

But unlike the McCain plan, which would have taxed employer-provided health benefits and used the money to pay for a new health care tax credit, the plan now being considered by Democrats, including Obama, would tax employer-health benefits to fund increased government health care spending. For the 250 million-plus Americans who already have health insurance, this is a raw deal�they pay more taxes and get nothing in return.

Lie Number 2: I Won�t Force You to Buy Health Insurance

What Obama said on the campaign trail (Janesville, Wis., February 13, 2008):

�The main difference between my plan and Senator Clinton�s plan is that she�d require the government to force you to buy health insurance and she said she�d �go after� your wages if you don�t.�

What Obama says now:

President Obama sent a letter to Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus yesterday that says�using the new code word �responsibility� to refer to the same kind of mandate he slammed in Hillary�s plan:

�I understand the Committees are moving towards a principle of shared responsibility � making every American responsible for having health insurance coverage, and asking that employers share in the cost. I share the goal of ending lapses and gaps in coverage that make us less healthy and drive up everyone�s costs, and I am open to your ideas on shared responsibility.�

While President Obama did say he would like a waiver process in hardship cases, there is no reason to have a mandate other than to force people to buy insurance who don�t want to, mostly young people who are healthy and want to spend their limited income on their young careers and families. According to the Census Bureau, about 60 percent of the uninsured are under age 35, with the highest rates in the 18-24 bracket (28.1 percent uninsured) and the 25-34 (25.7 percent uninsured) bracket. This is about forcing some people who don�t want health insurance to pay for other people through a new government program. It�s more spreading the wealth around.

President Obama is poised to accept this provision for the same reason Sen. Clinton proposed it�to buy off insurance companies. Democrats learned a lesson from the 1993 HillaryCare fight when the insurance companies stopped a Washington health care takeover. The mandate is a giveaway to insurance companies to buy their support this time by forcing healthy young people who use less health care to pay insurance premiums.

Lie Number 3: If You Aren�t Rich, I Won�t Raise Your Taxes

What Obama said on the campaign trail (September 12, 2008, Dover, N.H.):

�I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.�

What Obama says now:

Well, it�s hard to keep up because new ideas are floated every day, but they all would involve taxing people who make less than $250,000. In fact, even his income tax hikes for the rich have now been dropped down to start at $235,000. Then there�s the soft drink excise tax, the cap-and-trade energy taxes, and most recently the VAT, a form of national sales tax. And of course the tax on health benefits I mentioned above would also break the only-tax-the-rich pledge.

What all these proposals have in common: we all pay, big-time, likely trillions of dollars in higher taxes for �free� government health care. In fact, that�s probably the biggest lie of all�that government health care is free.

I see again that everyone is talking about President Obama's plan for universal health care and I once again feel the need to distinguish between universal health care and what the plan is that President Obama has campaigned for. I have copied and pasted part of the web page, but also included the link at the bottom of this for you to see the whole plan.

President Obama does not ask for universal health care where the government is in charge - he just wants the government to ensure that everyone has access to medical care and health insurance. Why is it so difficult to understand that this is not socialized medicine, government run healthcare, or universal coverage plans?

Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan

On health care reform, the American people are too often offered two extremes - government-run health care with higher taxes or letting the insurance companies operate without rules. Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe both of these extremes are wrong, and that�s why they�ve proposed a plan that strengthens employer coverage, makes insurance companies accountable and ensures patient choice of doctor and care without government interference.

The Obama-Biden plan provides affordable, accessible health care for all Americans, builds on the existing health care system, and uses existing providers, doctors and plans to implement the plan. Under the Obama-Biden plan, patients will be able to make health care decisions with their doctors, instead of being blocked by insurance company bureaucrats.

Under the plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year.

If you don�t have health insurance, you will have a choice of new, affordable health insurance options.

The way I look at it, the Obamas will have more help taking care of the dog (they can be a lot of work!) and also, IMHO, the girls are old enough now to have one and learn responsibility.

Off topic, but if I were in White House, I would follow in Calvin Coolidge's footsteps: He had 6 dogs, a bobcat, a goose, a donkey, a cat, 2 lion cubs, an antelope, a wallaby and a pygmy hippopotamus.

and what we have is a lame duck. I don't know what will happen with Obama but Bush has left him a huge moutain of problems to deal with. I expect Bush will replace Herbert Hoover in history as the worst president in history. Of course the republicans will try to blame his 8 years in office on the previous 8 years and the next 8 years. Sad thing is, some people will believe it, but not many I guess with his approval ratings.

really does need that teleprompter to get it right . . . What's this I hear about him being such a great orator? Sorry, but I think not.

Obama apologizes for gaffe on Special Olympics

WASHINGTON (Reuters) � President Barack Obama has apologized for a gaffe in which he described his bowling skills as akin to participants in the Special Olympics, a sports program for people with intellectual disabilities.

Obama made the mistake during an interview on Thursday night on "The Tonight Show" with host Jay Leno, the first time a sitting U.S. president had been on the show.

Talking about living in the White House, Obama said he had been practicing his bowling in the home's bowling alley and had scored a 129 out of a possible 300.

It was an improvement on the embarrassing 37 he had rolled during a stop on the presidential campaign trail a year ago.

"It's like -- it was like Special Olympics or something," Obama said.

The Special Olympics is a global nonprofit organization serving some 200 million people with intellectual disabilities, with a presence in nearly 200 countries worldwide. They compete in sporting events like the real Olympics.

Soon after the Jay Leno interview, Obama telephoned Special Olympics chairman Tim Shriver to apologize.

Shriver told ABC's "Good Morning America" television show that Obama had apologized "in a way that I think was very moving" and that he said "he did not intend to humiliate the population, didn't want to embarrass or give anybody any more reason for pain or kind of suffering."

Shriver said people should gain a lesson from the incident.

"I think it's important to see that words hurt. Words do matter. And these words in some respect, can be seen as humiliating or a put-down to people with special needs, do cause pain. And they do result in stereotypes," Shriver said.

White House spokesman Bill Burton said Obama "made an offhand remark making fun of his own bowling that was in no way intended to disparage the Special Olympics."

"He thinks that the Special Olympics are a wonderful program that gives an opportunity to shine to people with disabilities from around the world," Burton said.

Shriver said he knows of a Special Olympian in the Detroit area who has bowled three perfect games of 300 and "he said he would be more than welcome to find the time to come to the White House and teach the president."

(Reporting by Caren Bohan and Steve Holland, editing by Vicki Allen)

backwards stance he is taking and all the trips Michele is taking, or are we going to sit here and take it?

Sorry, but at least GW mostly stayed in Washington if not in Texas and ran the government. They did not take "geography" classes on the road. How's the garden doing Michele? Do we hear about that? Nope. Just another publicity stunt.

When O became president, I figured I would give him a chance....but I figured okay, some of those bailouts he did might work Today, he is pushing for the CLNE, clean energy bill, which Pelosi has a big stake in, and now I know he is just a puppet of Pelosi and the others. I will not sit here and take his lies any longer. If i have to I will send an email every day to the WH telling him where to get off.

We get a magazine on country living and they are telling us to brace ourselves for the coming new policies on food. They are telling us to stock up on food for at least 3 years especially if H.R. 875 passes. Now, I don't know when this is coming up for a vote but I read the bill and it doesn't make me happy with the wording. If what the magazine is stating, they can stop us from producing family gardens if they will it. I'm hoping they straighten this out because as I read through it, it directly aims at the larger food production facilities, but the words that bother me are "any farm, .....or facility.... that produces food for resale." That means you will not be able to sell your garden grown extra foodstuffs unless you have a registration number....which also means government intervention. If anyone is interested, I can post the article pertaining to that.

O is finding out that his words aren't penetrating those who hate us a lot, so, as of this week, he has decided to pull back on international "friendship" and just deal with the USA because he knows we are getting disheartened with his policies. This gets our minds off the real issues of the world and we are supposed to believe every word he says, yet some are still idolizing him. Just wait another year. Then it will be too late..

Sorry, not in my book. I think it's time for all Americans to stand up and fight, deluge the goverment with emails, etc., whatever gets through to our President. Heck, I've been emailing every time I hear something new that goes against the laws of the land. Does it fall on deaf ears? Certainly....but I still do it. Guess I wil lbe on he UnAmerican list soon but I don't care. I've been quiet too long and am actively taking a stance in the American way of life....which is almost gone already after the 100 days. So sad.....

My, how classy. That so-called retardate graduated Yale & Harvard. Now who's retarded? Bill Clinton is plenty of things, too, but stupid, retarded, etc. are things that I've never heard a conservative say...ever.

WASHINGTON � President George W. Bush's "after-life," as Laura Bush calls the post-presidency, is shaping up to be pretty comfortable, with a Dallas office, staffers, Secret Service protection, a travel budget, medical coverage and a $196,700 annual pension, all at taxpayers' expense.

However, Bush will be the first president not to benefit from one former lifetime benefit: Secret Service protection.

"He'll be the first one to receive it for 10 years," said Malcolm Wiley, Secret Service spokesman. Congress changed the law in the 1990s so that any president elected after Jan. 1, 1997, and his or her spouse will receive the federal protection for only 10 years.

The Bushes will move to their new $2 million, 8,500-square-foot Dallas home � not paid for by taxpayers � on Jan. 20, and there Bush will be close to his future presidential library at Southern Methodist University.

"We're working on a conceptual design for the building," said Mark Langdale, president of the George W. Bush Foundation. The president will help develop the $300 million structure, which will include a library, museum and policy institute.

Fundraising is just beginning, Langdale said. Once the project is finished in 2013, the National Archives and Records Administration will take over the operation of the library and museum, at federal expense. Construction will be paid for with private funds, and Bush is expected to be involved in organizing the fundraising drive.

"He is enthusiastic about spending a lot of his time and effort working on the programs of the institute," Langdale said.

Bush will maintain an office nearby in space acquired by the General Services Administration, which, under the Former Presidents Act, will pay for the office suite and staff to assist him for the rest of his life.

Bush's pension, which is tied to the base pay of the most senior government executives and increases with federal cost-of-living adjustments, will be about half the $400,000 annual presidential salary. He and Vice President Dick Cheney will receive transition expenses as well for seven months � one month before the inauguration and six months afterward � "to facilitate their transition to private life," according to the Congressional Research Service.

The GSA also covers travel expenses for any official activities attended by a former president, as well as two staff members. Former President Bill Clinton was allocated $50,000 for travel in fiscal year 2008 and former President George H.W. Bush, $56,000.

Former presidents and their families are entitled to health care in military hospitals, although they have to pay a reimbursement rate set by the Office of Management and Budget.

Bush will receive a state funeral upon his death, with full military honors for the former commander in chief.

Get over yourself. Grow up. Learn how to behave on an adult chat board. Stop lying. You are such a liar. I mean, lying all over the place. It's really terrible. You need help.

Would you prefer to punish the child she is carrying by offering no prenatal care? Would you sleep better if that woman went back to Mexico where her baby will receive no care at all? Did you ever stop to think that someone in your family was once an immigrant? Illegals don't pay taxes? If they work, they have taxes taken out of of their check and that is free money to the government that they are not eligible to ever collect once they are old.

Republicans are going to want to keep the illegals here to benefit big business (cheap labor) and democrats are going to want to help them, so either way, nothing will be done.