Today in Washington, D.C. - May 7, 2010 - Dems Track Record of False Promises & Lies

The Senate resumed consideration of S. 3217, the Dodd financial regulation bill. No votes are scheduled today. Yesterday, 57 Democrats voted to kill an amendment to the bill from Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Dick Shelby (R-AL) which would have restricted the reach of the consumer protection agency that Democrats create in the bill. Sen. McConnell described the agency as being "more about using this crisis as an opportunity to slip a vast new European-style regulatory bureaucracy past the American people than it is about holding Wall Street accountable."

Also yesterday the Senate voted 33-61 to reject an amendment from Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to break up big banks. Prior to that vote, the Senate voted 35-59 to reject an amendment from Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) to the Brown amendment which would have applied the size restrictions to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Once again this week, Americans have seen how poorly the rhetoric of President Obama and Democrats in Congress matches up with reality. On unemployment and health care, Democrats’ promises have rung hollow and it’s apparent to anyone who read the news this week.

Today, the AP reports that 290,000 jobs were added over the last month, but that the unemployment rate also rose to 9.9% as many Americans continue to struggle to find work. It’s now been about 15 months since Democrats passed their $862 billion stimulus bill and unemployment continues to hover near 10%, even though key White House economic advisors predicted that the “unemployment rate with … the recovery plan [stimulus],” would not exceed 8%. In fact, according to the graph that accompanied the Obama administration’s predictions about a stimulus bill, the unemployment rate is almost 1% higher than White House estimates of where unemployment would be if Congress had done nothing.

House Republican Leaders John Boehner (R-OH) responded to the above unemployment figures: "A 9.9 percent unemployment rate is a harsh reminder that families and small businesses continue to ask ‘where are the jobs?’ Positive job growth is always welcome news, but this rising and painfully high unemployment rate is a far cry from President Obama’s promise that the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ would keep joblessness from rising above eight percent. It has not, and millions have lost their jobs while Washington Democrats continue to push job-killing policies that pile more debt onto the backs of our kids and grandkids These misguided policies include a massive government takeover of health care, a Wall Street bailout bill, a value-added tax, a gas tax, and a government takeover of the Internet, all of which will kill jobs. Washington Democrats have no coherent agenda to create jobs, and no interest in doing anything but continue to spend money we don’t have on ‘stimulus’ programs that don’t work. Our economy will ultimately recover, but it will do so because of the hard work and entrepreneurship of the American people, not more wasteful Washington spending.  Republicans have proposed better solutions to cut spending now and help put people back to work."

Obama and congressional Democrats also made assurances that their $2.6 trillion takeover of health care would not affect the insurance coverage most Americans currently have and like. The president said for months that “if you like your [health insurance] plan, you can keep your plan,” ignoring the fact that CBO and others predicted otherwise. But yesterday, Fortune Magazine reported, “Internal documents recently reviewed by Fortune, originally requested by Congress, show what the [health care] bill’s critics predicted, and what its champions dreaded: many large companies are examining a course that was heretofore unthinkable, dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government.” And of course, as Fortune pointed out, “It would also seem to contradict President Obama’s statements that Americans who like their current plans could keep them.”

Now we’re hearing from Democrats that their financial regulation legislation poses no danger of regulatory overreach to Main Street businesses that had nothing to do with the financial collapse. In fact, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) said on the floor yesterday, “This bill covers only financial products and financial services. That dentists and butchers and retailers on the street are going to be affected by this is a complete myth, totally so, and the provisions of the bill couldn’t be more clear about it. There are no new regulations.” Yet letters from business groups across the country representing a wide variety of employers and business owners said they opposed the Dodd language in the bill and supported a Republican amendment that Democrats voted down, which would have, in the words of the National Federation for Independent Business, “turn[ed] the focus of the creation of a new regulator toward financial services companies and away from small businesses.”

So given what Americans have seen over the last year, and just in the last few days of the track record of Democrat promises and assurances about the impact of their ill-conceived legislation, is there good evidence that what they’re claiming about their financial regulation bill is more accurate? Let's not be too rhetorical - the answer is Hell NO! The Dems track record of promises has proven false and full of prevarications (Lies).

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