150 Reasons Why Barack Obama Is the Worst President in History (6 page)

Proposed more than $60 billion in tax and fee increases on American energy production.
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Continued to block oil exploration in Alaska, a potential source of than 10 billion barrels of oil.
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Proposed a Clean Energy Standard, which may increase electricity costs by as much as 21 percent.
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Got the U.S. Export-Import bank to provide a loan to Brazil’s oil production company, effectively subsidizing foreign oil production, while increasing the costs of U.S. oil production.
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Pushed for national adoption of Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), which are state-level mandates that energy producers use a certain amount of “renewable” energy, even though the 29 states that have implemented these standards have, on average, electricity costs 32 percent higher than states without them.
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Proposed exempting oil and gas companies from eligibility to receive a tax credit (Internal Revenue Code Section 199) that encourages domestic manufacturing.
¹⁴²
All other domestic manufacturers would still get the tax credit.

While Obama’s actions have benefited his green energy cronies, they’ve hurt the economy for the rest of us.

48.
Removing God and Jerusalem from His Party Platform

It is a staple of American politics to call upon the blessings of God for our efforts. Even today, the overwhelming majority of Americans express belief in God and a majority of them adhere to the Judeo-Christian concept of God. So, honoring God is in practical terms generally considered uncontroversial in American politics. But, at the 2012 Democrat National Convention, God was not mentioned in the party platform… in fact, it had been explicitly removed. Also removed from the party platform was language recognizing that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

Naturally, once the media reported the story, the Democratic National Committee went into full damage control. The media aided and abetted, and the bad situation was quickly spun into a positive for Obama, suggesting he personally intervened to get the mention of God and Jerusalem as Israel’s capital back in the party platform. Of course, the truth is Obama had already been aware of the change.
Politico
reported that Obama “had seen the language prior to the convention […] but did not seek to change it until after Republicans jumped on the omissions…”
¹⁴³

49.
Barely Acknowledging Shooting At Family Research Council

Obama may be a (re)convert to supporting gay marriage, but that hardly excuses his cavalier response when there was a shooting at the Family Research Council’s headquarters by gay rights activist Floyd Lee Corkin II, who disapproved of the organization’s opposition to gay marriage. The incident was treated as domestic terrorism by investigators. Corkin declared his actions were because of what the organizations “stands for,” thus making it a hate crime.
¹⁴⁴

Mitt Romney was quick to condemn the shooting and issued a formal statement. Obama expressed concern for the security guard who was shot, but there were no calls for “civil and honest public discourse” from the man who called for the very same things in the wake of the January 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona, when Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was wounded.

50.
Domestic Policy Flip-Flops

Even Barack Obama has stumbled upon a good policy occasionally. Unfortunately, as president, he has often changed his mind for the worse. Here are a few examples of Obama’s domestic policy flip-flops:

•
In 2006, then-Senator Obama called a proposal to raise the debt ceiling a “leadership failure” but, as president, Obama has not only requested raises in the debt ceiling, but also unilateral and unconstitutional power to raise it at his whim.
¹⁴⁵

•
In 2008, Obama campaigned on cutting the deficit in half; through his first term, Obama raised the annual deficit to a trillion dollars or more per year.

•
Obama said he would not employ lobbyists in the White House, but has, instead, given many waivers to allow lobbyists to work there.
¹⁴⁶

•
Obama promised a robust, manned space program, even agreeing to Bush Administration policy of returning to the moon by 2020. But, Obama killed funding for the Constellation space shuttle, which was to bring America back to the moon, and with the termination of the Space Shuttle program, the United States no longer has a manned space program.
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•
Obama promised that as president he would reduce earmarks “to less than $7.8 billion a year, the level they were at before 1994.” But earmarks for FY2010, the last year before Republicans took control of the House, was $15.9 billion.
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•
Obama promised that he would eliminate income taxes on American seniors making $50,000 or less; Obama has never even made a move on this.
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•
Obama promised to adhere to “paygo” budgeting in which all new expenditures be paid for either by spending reductions elsewhere or tax increases.
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At no time has Obama obeyed “paygo” rules and has chastised all GOP attempts to enforce it.

•
Obama routinely blamed President Bush for high gas prices, but as gas prices have skyrocketed to record levels under his Administration, Obama has suddenly decided that the President doesn’t have any power to affect gas prices.
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•
In 2008, Obama touted the use of gas pipelines across Canada as a means of improving America’s economy and energy security.
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As president, he blocked the Keystone pipeline, which would bring oil across Canada and into the United States, and of course, create jobs.
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•
Then-candidate Obama strongly attacked Hillary Clinton for her health care plan requiring an individual mandate.
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Of course, Obamacare has an individual mandate.
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51.
Exploiting Disaster and Tragedy To Push Agenda

If there’s any time to put politics aside it’s in the wake of a national tragedy. But Barack Obama has seen fit more than once in his presidency to take a national tragedy and use it to push his own agenda. Obama used the BP Oil spill as cover for banning offshore drilling. He even compared the situation to the 9/11 terror attacks.
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The memorial service for the victims of the Tucson shooting where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was severely wounded was turned into a quasi-political rally.
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During a press conference several days after the shooting in Newton, CT at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, Obama invoked the massacre
and
Hurricane Sandy in a shameful plea for Republicans to agree to raise taxes. “After what we’ve gone through over the past several months,” Obama said regarding the hurricane and the shooting, “the country deserves the folks to be willing to compromise for the greater good.”
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Not that Obama ever showed any desire to compromise on taxes or entitlement reform during the fiscal cliff negotiations. National tragedy appears to be reserved for Obama’s sole use.

If there is one thing that will define Obama’s legacy, it is Obamacare. This is such a big deal that it needs its own chapter—if not its own book.

Obamacare was sold to the public as a job creating, economy-stimulating law that would reduce premiums, and increase coverage. None of it was true.

We were promised a transparent, bipartisan process to address the issue of health care and got neither. What we got was a government takeover of health care so big and full of crippling regulations, even its most vocal supporters requested waivers from it. Obamacare is so large and so full of costly regulations it seems like there’s always something new we are learning about it, and what we’ve learned so far isn’t very good. It is no wonder Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass it in order to find out what was in it. It will take years to fully understand Obamacare and its impact on our nation’s healthcare and the economy. It is off to a horrible start.

When we look at Obamacare—how it came to be, what it has done so far, and what it is likely to do in the future, it is quite clear that the centerpiece of Obama’s legacy is the last thing any president would want to be remembered for.

52.
Lack of Health Care Transparency

Health care represents one-sixth of the entire US economy and affects Americans of all walks of life. While not perfect, it is still the best health care system in the world.

There have been a variety of ideas on how to fix the system’s shortcomings. America is a large and diverse nation with varied health care needs. The only chance for a rational solution for our health care system is if everyone has input and all negotiations are done in an above-board manner without secret, backroom deals. And this is what Obama had promised—in fact he promised to broadcast the final negotiations live on C-SPAN.

Sadly, that was just another broken Obama promise. Because of an alleged need to “fast track” the final Obamacare bill (which wouldn’t go in to full effect until four years after passage), Obama agreed with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the final negotiations would be held behind closed doors.
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Underscoring just how secret the details of this government takeover of one-sixth of the economy were, Nancy Pelosi explained that we had to pass the Obamacare bill to find out what’s in it.

53.
A Partisan Bill

When Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, he promised make health care reform a bipartisan effort. But there was nothing bipartisan about how Obamacare became law.

In fact, Democrats were so desperate just to get it passed and signed that when Scott Brown won a special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s former seat, and end the Democrat’s filibuster-proof majority, Democrats used a
legislative process called
reconciliation to limit debate in order to fast track the bill’s passage in both chambers. But, according to the Heritage Foundation, reconciliation “was not intended to be the procedure of last resort when other means fail, and to do so would be a complete abuse of reconciliation rules.”
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Despite his campaign promise to bring Democrats and Republicans
together
in the process of reforming healthcare, Obama signed the trillion dollar government takeover of one-sixth of the United States economy that passed with zero Republican votes in the Senate and only one Republican vote in the House.
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54.
Waivers For Obamacare’s Proponents

If Obamacare is great, why would anyone want a waiver, and why would the government grant them one? It’s a fair question, seeing as 1,231 companies (affecting just under 4 million people) received waivers, according the Department of Health and Human Services.
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Adding insult to injury, a very large number of the waivers granted have been to Obama’s allies in Big Labor.
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It’s not just Obama’s Big Labor allies getting Obamacare waivers either. An Obama cabinet nominee also received an Obamacare waiver.

Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, has always been a supporter of Obamacare. In 2009, she participated in an Obama administration roundtable on health care reform. That didn’t stop her from seeking and receiving an Obamacare waiver for REI’s health coverage back in 2011.
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55.
Hurting Businesses

Obama promised to lower health care costs on his watch, but they’ve actually gone up. In 2012, for the first time ever, employer-provided health insurance costs for a family of four exceeded $20,000.
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A survey by the Mercer consulting firm found that nearly two-thirds of employers expect their health care costs to
increase
in 2014 when Obamacare is fully implemented.
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These higher costs will force some employers to change their health coverage and force their employees to pay more. Other companies will have to pass the costs on to customers. After Obama was reelected, Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter said that Obamacare would force his company to raise the price of pizza.
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This may not sound like much, but Papa John’s is not alone.

According to the National Restaurant Association, which represents nearly 13 million employees in the restaurant and food service industry, the extra costs imposed by Obamacare are a threat to the already slim profit margins that most restaurants operate on. Dawn Sweeney, President and CEO of the National Restaurant Association, said restaurant owners “cannot be saddled with excessive costs and regulatory burdens that threaten their very business.”

Obamacare doesn’t just force businesses to make their employees or customers to pay more to offset the extra costs. It also means that smaller businesses that can’t afford to provide coverage as mandated by Obamacare will be forced layoff or cut the hours of their employees in order to avoid heavy penalties. Florida restaurant owner, John Metz, who runs roughly forty Denny’s Restaurants and owns the Hurricane Grill & Wings franchise, decided after Obama was reelected to add a five percent surcharge to customers’ bills and cut hours of employees to under 30 hours a week to avoid the $2,000 per employee penalty for not offering a government-approved insurance plan, as required under Obamacare. According to Metz, the cost of covering employees under the law would cost more than most of his restaurants make in a year.
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56.
Higher Health Care Premiums

When first running for president, Obama promised his health care reform would lower insurance premiums by $2,500 per family per year. It sure sounded good on the stump but the reality of Obamacare doesn’t even come close to lowering premiums by that amount. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Obamacare actually
raises
annual premiums per family by $2,400, making health insurance premiums $4,900 higher than what he promised.
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57.
Americans Lose Coverage

Obamacare was supposed to get all Americans health insurance, but according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office released in February 2013, Obamacare will push 7 million people out of employer-provided health coverage. This estimate is nearly double the previous estimate from six months earlier. The CBO has also estimated a worst-case scenario of twenty million Americans
losing
their employer-provided coverage because of the law.
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For years, liberals had been complaining that Americans were losing their health coverage as evil insurance companies kicked people off their policies. They have long believed the government needed to step in and set it right. In story after story in the run-up to the enactment of Obamacare, liberal organizations and news sources talked endlessly of Americans who could no longer get health insurance. While these stories dried up once the ink was dry on Obama's signature, the reality is that Americans continue to lose their coverage—because of Obamacare.

58.
Cutting Medicare To Pay for Obamacare

Medicare benefits were not supposed to change, according to Obama. But it’s hard to explain how benefits will stay the same and the program will remain solvent when Obamacare actually
cuts
$716 billion from Medicare. Medicare actuary Richard Foster said these cuts “will not be viable” in the long term.
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Foster also projected that more than 7 million Medicare recipients enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans would have to find other coverage because of the cuts, a reduction in enrollment of about half.
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These cuts will ultimately force seniors to pay higher premiums and see a reduction in benefits.

Obama’s raiding of Medicare also brings the program on the fast track to insolvency. According to the 2011 Medicare Trustees Report, Medicare will be bankrupt by 2024, five years earlier than previously estimated.
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59.
Rationing Health Care

If there is any part of Obamacare with bipartisan agreement, it is opposition to the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), the fifteen-member government agency created by Obamacare with the stated purpose of finding savings in Medicare without compromising coverage or the quality of care. By design, this board of unelected bureaucrats is protected from Congressional review.
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It wasn’t just members of Congress raising objections to IPAB either. Even the American Medical Association, which was influential in getting Obamacare passed, has called for IPAB’s repeal.
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While there has been plenty of debate over whether charges that IPAB would amount to so-called “death panels,” many Democrats have recognized that IPAB will reduce access to care. Julie Reiskin, who was nominated to serve on the Legal Services Corporation Board of Directors by Barack Obama, said that IPAB will “ration care or increase consumer cost sharing.”
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60.
Obamacare Layoffs

With two distinct directions for the country to move in, many American business owners, struggling under the Obama economy, held out for the results of the presidential election before making major decisions about the future of their companies.

The election came, Obama won, and the chances of Obamacare being repealed became nonexistent. With new regulations and higher taxes looming, businesses across the country started announcing future layoffs. Here are just a few:

Boeing: 30 percent of executives.
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Energizer: about 1,500 employees.
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Murray Energy: 156 employees.
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Groupon: 80 employees.
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Stanford Brake: 75 employees.
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Rocketdyne: 100 employees.
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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in November 2012 there were 1,759 “mass layoff actions” from firms that have more than 50 employees, affecting nearly 165,000 workers.
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This was not merely the continuation of a trend, since mass layoffs had actually been
declining
for three years.

Some companies didn’t even wait until the election to make their moves. Medical companies like Boston Scientific, Medtronic, Abbot Lams, Covidien, Kinetic Concepts, St. Jude Medical, Welch Allyn, Hill Rom,
and Stryker, Smith & Nephew
had previously anticipated massive layoffs in 2013 because of new taxes in Obamacare.
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61.
The Obamacare Co-Op Debacle

An obscure provision in Obamacare allocated $2 billion in taxpayer-funded, tax-free loans to establish 24 Obamacare co-ops nationwide to compete with private health insurance providers. The Obama Administration had to approve each loan, and one would think that when it comes to our nation’s health care, some standard would apply to which companies got loans.

The
Washington Examiner
’s
Richard Pollack reported some of the loans the Obama Administration approved:

$62 million to Maine Community Health Options, whose president had been molesting teenage boys for more than three decades.
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$65 million to Louisiana Health Cooperative, whose CEO Terry Shilling was sanctioned by the Securities and Exchange Commission for insider trading.
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$112 million to CoOportunity Health, whose chief financial officer Stephen Ringlee had at least three businesses fail since 2009.
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$129 million to Florida-based Community Health Solutions of America, for an Obamacare co-op in Ohio. The principals of this co-op have histories of failed companies, bankruptcy, and tax problems.
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But the largest loan, $340 million, went to Freelancers Insurance Company, which is based out of New York, and is run Sara Horowitz, an old friend of Obama’s from back when he was a state senator. This might not seem so terrible if her company had a reputation for quality service, but they don’t. Freelancers Insurance Company has an extremely high rate of consumer complaints, and, for two consecutive years, was rated the “worst” insurer by state regulators.
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