By Bill Wilson — Everyone headed to the polls on Nov. 6 is free to pick their reasons for what makes them cast a ballot one way or another. But there is one overriding factor that may ultimately give the Obama Administration a lot of heartache when the votes are finally counted on Tuesday, and it could prove devastating.
That is integrity.
Since assuming office, the American people have been treated to one falsehood after another — whether on the true cause of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, questionable economic data heralding a non-existent recovery, or promises to cut the deficit in half when $6 trillion has been added to the debt.
It has become extremely difficult to believe him on anything after nearly four years.
The Obama economic team had forecast that if his $835 billion “stimulus” was enacted, unemployment would have returned to 5.8 percent. Instead, it’s at 7.9 percent, higher than when Obama took office — representing more than 12 million people jobless.
But it’s even worse than that. If all of the people working part-time for economic reasons or are discouraged or have given up were included, the number soars to 27 million who cannot find full-time work in this economy.
Obama claims his new budget would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade. In reality, the $16 trillion debt will soar to $26 trillion by the White House’s own projections.
He promised to close Guantanamo Bay and rein in the national security state, only to keep the prison open and expand the prior administration’s surveillance programs.
He said “if you like your health plan you can keep it” when his own Department of Labor reported in a rule that 69 percent of all employer-provided health plans would not be grandfathered into the plan as early as 2013.
He claimed his would be the most transparent administration ever, but when he received a reward for “openness” the media was barred.
But, as Obama would say, those are “just words.”
The real lack of integrity from the White House has been its blatant disregard for the constitutional separation of powers.
On June 15 Barack Obama issued an executive action essentially and summarily granting legal status to perhaps 800,000 illegal immigrants. Whether one agrees with the DREAM Act — which would have done essentially the same thing — or not, everyone should agree it was up to Congress to pass it, or not, at Obama’s personal discretion.
Days later, he cited executive privilege in Attorney General Eric Holder withholding documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal. By every standard, this is a dramatic expansion of the doctrine, which is only supposed to extend to the President’s top advisors — not low-level Justice Department officials whose actions got a Border Patrol agent and hundreds of Mexicans killed.
Obama pretended a congressional recess into existence to make radical appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
When a federal judge in Louisiana struck down Obama’s moratorium on Gulf oil drilling, Obama defied it and just reissued the same moratorium.
His Federal Reserve printed $1.25 trillion out of thin air to buy back dodgy securities from banks that bet poorly on U.S. housing, including $442.7 billion that was given to foreign banks — all without any vote in Congress.
The Obama Federal Housing Finance Administration arbitrarily allowed Fannie and Freddie mortgages that are 25 percent higher than market value to be refinanced when the law placing the GSEs in conservatorship never allowed it.
Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation to force religious-based institutions to pay for contraception against their own teachings in violation of the First Amendment.
His EPA arbitrarily declared carbon dioxide, a gas essential to life itself, to be a “harmful pollutant” covered under the Clean Air Act.
His Justice Department took on the role of a court and declared the Defense of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional when its role is to defend the law whether it agrees with it or not.
One could go on. But you get the point. Obama has a problem with the truth. He is incapable of telling the truth about his record. All he can do is disrespect the American people, by insulting their intelligence, and by exceeding his authority of office.
Should he be elected, Mitt Romney may not be any better, but it would be virtually impossible for him to be any worse.
Bill Wilson is President of Americans for Limited Government. You can follow Bill on Twitter at @BillWilsonALG.
