The Left tries to portray Republicans as constantly delaying and/or opposing Obama’s Supreme Court nomination because, they claim, the Right is ‘racist.’ Yet, no one seems to remember the many, many times Obama has delayed policies or votes for political reasons– and during an election.
The New York Times’ Brent Staples went so far as to equate Republican dissent to slavery. He wrote:
It’s hardly racism, in fact, it’s political maneuvering. Maneuvering that President Obama himself has used extensively. Here are 10 instances where the President has tried to stall items until after an election year.”
Yet, consider what has still not been accomplished– even since November, 2013.
FreedomWorks complied a clever list of policies that still have not changed two and a half years later. A revised version is below.
10) ‘Rangeling’ in Corrupt Congressmembers– Rangel and Waters
In a clear demonstration that politics trumps ethics, Obama’s Democratic party members on the House Ethics Committee continually delayed the trials of Representatives Charles Rangel
21%
and Maxine Waters
28%
past the November, 2010, lame duck session, even into the 112th Congress. (2017 will usher in the 115th Congress.)
Politico reported that Waters was charged with three ethics violations for actions she and her aide, Mikael Moore, allegedly took on behalf of a minority-owned bank (her husband was a stockholder) in 2008.
As for Rangel:
Rangel has been hit with 13 ethics charges, including allegations that he improperly solicited money from corporate officials and lobbyists for the Charles B. Rangel Public Policy Center in New York; failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars of income and assets on financial disclosure forms; maintained multiple rent-stabilized apartments in a luxury Harlem apartment building; and failed to pay income taxes on a villa in the Dominican Republic.
After the 2010 Election, Rangel’s trial was held on November 15th; Waters’ for November 29th. Rangel was found guilty of 11 ethics violations. Waters’ trial was postponed for another two years due to “disarray in the committee.” She was eventually cleared due to “insufficient evidence.”
9) General Delay-Us
Reports surfaced shortly after the 2012 Election that the resignation of General David Petraeus had been delayed until after Election Day at the request of the Obama administration. While the reason for his resignation was that he had had an affair, the real reason was his expected testimony about Benghazi and the likelihood that he would not communicate the lie Obama, Susan Rice, and Hillary Clinton had pandered in the media. Attorney Petraeus resigned on November 9, 2012.
An FBI source explained:
“The decision was made to delay the resignation apparently to avoid potential embarrassment to the president before the election.”
8) Bush’s Fault
Democrats, who controlled the Senate agenda in 2010, blamed Republicans for conspiring to derail plans to vote on an extension of the Bush tax cuts prior to the election.
Democrats had spent weeks claiming the issue would be a winner for them at the ballot box, then lacked the courage to actually vote on what they claimed the Republicans were avoiding, and successfully put off the vote until after the election.
7) A New Date For The Mandate
In what The Hill called a “stunning announcement,” the White House announced delaying the Obamacare employer mandate by a year, until after the 2014 midterm elections. The mandate requires businesses with 50 or more employees to provide “full-time” workers with government approved health insurance plans, or pay additional fines and taxes. Since then, small businesses have suffered astronomical increases in costs, the majority cite 87 percent.
At the time, talk show host Rush Limbaugh referred to the tactic as means to “delay the suffering,” but even then, Obamacare had already caused numerous employers to respond by cutting thousands of jobs or reducing employee hours and benefits.
6) Cuts Like a Knife
Obamacare has had to raid Medicare to fund other aspects of its mandates, an estimated $717 billion over 10 years, with $154 billion coming from the Medicare Advantage program.
The fact that Obama spent $8.35 billion in taxpayer money to hide the planned cuts to the Medicare Advantage plans was made public in May, 2012. The Weekly Standard referred to this ploy as the “Senior Swindle,” describing it as a brazen “attempt to keep Obamacare’s effects from being demonstrated until it’s too late for voters to respond.”
5) Coal Country Crush
A month prior to his re-election bid, Obama’s EPA, according to a report from Senator Jim Inhofe
74%
, “punted” on numerous regulations hoping to “earn votes” for a second term.
A few days before Election Day, another report surfaced indicating that Obama illegally failed to comply with legal requirements to release regulatory plans for the coming year. If he had done so, voters in coal-reliant states would have found out that their industry and economic livelihood was about to be crushed and subsequently would not have voted for him, or democrats. Freedom Works estimated that EPA regulations could cost the coal industry roughly 900,000 jobs losses every year.
4) Pipeline to Nowhere
Despite the fact that the Keystone XL pipeline was approved by ten federal agencies, including the EPA, that numerous studies demonstrated its economic benefits, and it received bi-partisan support, Obama delayed any and all decisions about the pipeline until after the 2012 election. .
Delaying the decision provided false hope that Obama would actually pursue a job-creating project in a depressed economy, as well as hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day, and countless opportunities for revenue– which he did not.
3) Enrollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’ Right Past Election Day
Obama also pushed back second-year enrollment legal requirements to November 15th, 2014.
The Obama administration plans to push back by a month the second-year start of enrollment in its health program to give insurers more time to adjust to growing pains in the U.S. law, a move that may stave off higher premiums before the 2014 congressional elections.
Illegally changing the law by moving enrollment dates past the election, helped hide from voters what they would soon experience: spiked costs and cancellations– until after the 2014 election.
2) So Long, Solyndra Employees
As the 2010 midterm election approached, Obama’s poster child for “green energy stimulus,”Solyndra, was in economic shambles. The stimulus was touted as a tremendous job creator, but in actuality, despite the enormous amount of taxpayer funds Solyndra received, it announced a significant number of layoffs at its factory. According to a Solyndra adviser, the administration was “pushing ‘very hard’ to delay making the layoffs public until the day after the elections.” Layoffs were announced on November 3rd, one day after the election.
1) Mr. Flexibility
It was the hot mic heard ’round the world. In March, 2012, Obama was caught discussing the contentious issue of missile defense with outgoing Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, stating that he needed “space” from Russia’s incoming President Vladimir Putin, and that, “after my election, I have more flexibility.”
The comment raised questions about any potential concessions made regarding missile defense, and whether or not this “flexibility” would apply to other issues by someone who believes he would no longer need to be concerned about voter concerns.
Doug Powers translated his statement to mean, “if you back off this year, you can have it your way after I’m re-elected.”
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