Thursday, December 17, 2009

I Don't Make Promises... (I Can't Break)

“I Don’t Make Promises… (I Can’t Break)” is the title of a song by artist Shannon Curfman. I chose this song as the opening for my Blog Talk Radio program‘Conservative Republican Forum’ (which airs Saturdays at 6PM Eastern) because it seems that politicians, on both sides of the aisle, are incapable of telling the truth to their constituents. It seemed very appropriate for a show about politics in America today.

Republicans lost their majorities in the House and Senate, as well as, the White House because they didn’t keep their promises and acted like Democrats, abandoning fiscal responsibility and expanding government in both size and reach. They deserved to lose and opened the door for Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama to breeze into power.

When Barack Obama ran for President he promised the nation change we could “believe in” and many, though not this correspondent, believed him. Candidate Obama promised the most transparent White House in history. He promised that negotiations and deliberations would be on C-Span for the public to see. Obama also promised that there would be no earmarks in any bill he signed into law, “none”. We were told by this president that if his “stimulus” weren’t signed into law that the unemployment rate would soar over 10% and that if it was signed into law that the unemployment rate wouldn’t go above 8%. He said that all bills would be posted on the Internet for a week, so that the public would have the chance to read and comment on them before they were signed into law.

Almost a year into his first (and hopefully only) term it seems that President Obama doesn’t make promises that he can’t break. The only change he’s brought to Washington is an increase in deficit spending and a tremendous expansion in the size of the federal government. The White House wouldn’t even release a list of visitors to the People’s House until a Freedom of Information Act request forced them to so and the President’s transparency taskforce met behind closed doors with no media allowed. The healthcare bills in both the House and Senate have been written, in secret, with no Republicans being allowed to participate. The no earmarks promise has been broken repeatedly, as has the promise to post all legislation on the Internet before being signed into law. The “stimulus” was passed without even the members of Congress reading it and yet the unemployment rate is over 10% nationally and much higher in many states.

It seems that the only promises that are being kept are the ones that Obama and company have made to their cronies, like SEIU and GE. Those are promises that most of us would prefer he break. SEIU was allowed to write the “stimulus” bill which is why union employees, especially those working for the federal government, are getting raises while people all over the country continue to lose their jobs. General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, whose NBC and MSNBC “news” divisions have been in the tank for Obama from day one, is on the president’s Economic Council and was appointed to the board of the New York Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, when he was in China Obama negotiated a deal for GE to manufacture wind turbines to be sold to China.

So I suggest that from now on, instead of playing “Hail to the Chief” when President Obama enters a room, the band should instead play “I Don’t Make Promises… (I Can’t Break)”.