Democrats’ Plan is Four More Years of Failure

October 25, 2012

Democrats’ Plan is Four More Years of Failure

President Obama’s Glossy “New” Plan Is the Same as the Old Plan: More of the Failed Spending Sprees that Have Hurt Working Families

  • Facing criticism that Democrats have no plan for reviving the economy, President Obama released a glossy, new pamphlet to outline his “plan.”  

  • Instead of changing course after four years of failure, Obama’s new “plan” has no new ideas—it just recycles the failed policies and broken promises of the last four years.

  • The fact is the Obama agenda of spending money we don’t have has failed, and working families are still struggling. We can’t afford four more years of the same.

Facing criticism that Democrats have no plan for reviving the economy, President Obama released a glossy, new pamphlet to outline his “plan”:

TIMES MARK HALPERIN: “THE PRESIDENT DID NOT LAY OUT A SECOND TERM AGENDA.” MARK HALPERIN: “I just want to say one thing we haven’t brought up yet but it’s incredibly important. The President did not lay out a second term agenda. And if there’s an undercurrent here, that could really hurt him, not in the room, because it wasn’t evident, it was absent. He didn’t lay out a second term agenda any more than he did in the first debate. And that is where he is the weakest. And he didn’t address it, I thought at all.” (MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” 10/17/2012)

NBC NEWS’ DAVID GREGORY: OBAMA WAS A “LITTLE LIGHT ON HIS VISION FOR THE FUTURE”: (Jonathan Sanger and M. Alex Johnson, “First Take: Obama, Romney ‘Throw Down’ On Long Island,” NBC News, 10/17/12)

TIME’s JOE KLEIN: “OBAMA’S GREATEST WEAKNESS IS THAT HIS PROPOSALS FOR THE FUTURE ARE NONEXISTENT”: (Joe Klein, “The Hofstra Debate: No Clear Winner,” TIME’s Swampland, 10/16/12)

THE NEW YORK TIMES’ TOM FRIEDMAN: OBAMA’S WEAKNESS IS ANSWERING “HOW WILL THE NEXT FOUR YEARS REALLY BE DIFFERENT?”: TOM FRIEDMAN: “I continue to believe Obama has a weakness when it comes to the question of will the next four years really be different? Do you have a plan that excites you and me to get out of my chair and say that’s the guy, that’s it, that’s the person I want to follow now. He has not closed that deal.” (MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” 10/17/2012)

“NEW OBAMA BOOK HAS 2ND-TERM PLAN”…SORT OF: “Faced with persistent calls for more detail about what a second term would look like, President Barack Obama on Tuesday released a glossy, 20-page repackaging of the plans he has announced on subjects from energy to education. Obama planned to unveil the booklet, ‘The New Economic Patriotism: A PLAN FOR JOBS & MIDDLE-CLASS SECURITY,’ at an event in Delray Tennis Center in Delray, Fla.” (Mike Allen, “New Obama Book Has 2nd-Term Plan,” Politico, 10/23/2012)

Instead of changing course after four years of failure, Obama’s new “plan” has no new ideas—it just recycles the failed policies and broken promises of the last four years:

WSJ: “A SECOND FIRST TERM”: (“A Second First Term,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/24/2012)

PLAN “ISN’T NEW AND BARELY QUALIFIES AS A PLAN”: (“A Second First Term,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/24/2012)

CNN’S JESSICA YELLIN: “THERE’S NOT ANYTHING SIGNIFICANTLY NEW IN HERE, IT’S ALL JUST COMPILED IN A NICE BOOKLET NOW”: “There’s not anything significantly new in here, it’s just all compiled in a nice booklet now.” (JP Freire, “CNN: Obama’s Plan Not ‘Significantly New,’ Just Same Old Stuff Repackaged,” The American Spectator, 10/23/2012)

POLITICO’s MIKE ALLEN: “A REPACKAGING OF THE PLANS THE PRESIDENT HAS PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED”: ALLEN: “This is a repackaging of the plans the President has previously announced of manufacturing, education, energy.” (MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” 10/22/12)

AP: “A COMPILATION OF POSITIONS OBAMA HAS OUTLINED PREVIOUSLY”: “The morning after the final presidential debate, Obama’s campaign released a 20-page booklet called the ‘Blueprint for America’s Future.’ The plan is a compilation of positions Obama has outlined previously, including spending more on education and boosting manufacturing jobs.” (Julie Pace, “Obama Renews Focus On Second-Term Agenda,” Associated Press, 10/23/12)

MORE OF THE SAME EMPTY PROMISES:

1. OBAMA PROMISES TO CUT DEFICIT BY $4 TRILLION:(“A Plan for Jobs and Middle Class Security,” Obama for America, 10/23/2012)

$5.58 TRILLION INCREASE IN NATIONAL DEBT SINCE OBAMA TOOK OFFICE:(“The Daily History of the Debt Results,” Bureau of the Public Debt, Accessed 10/24/2012)

2. VOWS FOCUS ON “REVIVING AMERICAN MANUFACTURING”: (“A Plan for Jobs and Middle Class Security,” Obama for America, 10/23/2012)

610,000 MANUFACTURING JOBS HAVE BEEN LOST SINCE OBAMA TOOK OFFICE:(“Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics Survey,” Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 10/23/12)

3. PROMISES MORE “ENERGY MADE IN AMERICA”: (“A Plan for Jobs and Middle Class Security,” Obama for America, 10/23/2012)

TOTAL FOSSIL FUEL PRODUCTION IN PUBLIC AREAS HAS PLUNGED TO NINE-YEAR LOW: The problem for the President is that a government outfit called the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) compiles these statistics. That’s where Mr. Romney got his accurate figures on oil and gas production on government land and permitting in Mr. Obama’s first term. The EIA also reports that total fossil fuel production in public areas—oil, gas and coal—has plunged to a nine-year low, to 18.6 quadrillion BTUs from 21.2 quadrillion in 2003.” (Editorial, “Energy in the Executive,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/17/2012)

4. PLEDGES COMMITMENT TO “GROWING SMALL BUSINESSES”: (“A Plan for Jobs and Middle Class Security,” Obama for America, 10/23/2012)

ALREADY BROKEN: JOINT COMMITTEE ON TAXATION: 940,000 SMALL BUSINESSES TO GET HIT BY DEMOCRATS’ LATEST TAX HIKE: “Congress’s Joint Tax Committee—not a conservative outfit—estimates that in 2013 about 940,000 taxpayers will have enough business income to meet Mr. Obama’s tax increase threshold.” (Editorial, “Off the Tax Cliff He Goes,” The Wall Street Journal, 7/10/2012)

The fact is the Obama agenda of spending money we don’t have has failed, and working families are still struggling. We can’t afford four more years of the same:

AP: “ECONOMIC RECOVERY IS THE WEAKEST SINCE WORLD WAR II”: (Paul Wiseman, “Economic Recovery is the Weakest Since World War II,” Associated Press, 8/15/2012)

MEDIAN INCOME WAS $55,198 WHEN OBAMA TOOK OFFICE; IT IS $50,678 TODAY: (“Household Income Down 8.2 Percent Since Obama Took Office,” Fox News, 9/26/2012)

U.S. INCOMES FELL MORE AFTER STIMULUS THAN DURING RECESSION: (Jeff Kearn, “U.S. Incomes Fell More in Recovery, Sentier Says,” Bloomberg, 8/23/2012)

23 MILLION UNEMPLOYED, UNDEREMPLOYED AND DISCOURAGED WORKERS: (“The Employment Situation—August 2012,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, 10/5/2012)

UNEMPLOYMENT ABOVE 8% FOR 43 STRAIGHT MONTHS UNDER OBAMA, MORE THAN 11 PREVIOUS PRESIDENTS COMBINED:  (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 10/7/2012)

WHITE HOUSE HAD PREDICTED UNEMPLOYMENT WOULD BE AT ABOUT 5.6% NOW IF WE PASSED THEIR STIMULUS: (James Pethokoukis, “The Awful, Awful August Jobs Report,” The American Enterprise Institute, 9/7/2012)

“US POVERTY RATE 15 PERCENT; RECORD NUMBERS PERSIST”: (Hope Yen, “US Poverty Rate 15 Percent; Record Numbers Persist,” Associated Press, 9/12/2012)

STUDY: ANNUAL COST OF OBAMA’S DEBT AMOUNTS TO $4,000 A YEAR IN HIGHER TAXES ON THE MIDDLE CLASS: “In a new paper, AEI’s Aspen Gorry and Matt Jensen look at the real annual cost of servicing the debt for households at various levels of income — including a potentially higher tax burden. As the table below illustrates, a household making between $100,000 and $200,000 a year could find its tax liability higher by roughly $2,400 every year. Over ten years, that works out to $24,000. And when you add in the debt already accrued the past four years under President Obama (the second table), that’s another $1,600 a year. So now we are now talking about $4,000 a year, $40,000 over ten years.” (James Pethokoukis, “Study: Obama’s Big Budget Deficits Could Mean A $4,000 A Year Middle-Class Tax Hike,” American Enterprise Institute, 10/2/12)

Democrats’ Plan is Four More Years of Failure http://ow.ly/eKdiX