Research

The news coming out of yesterday’s summit is clear: Obama’s dream of bullying Republicans didn’t come true. As Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown notes:

Another Democratic problem is that their hoped-for slam-dunk on bipartisanship didn't materialize Thursday. Democrats from Obama on down seemed to be counting on portraying the Republicans as obstructionists and know-nothings – all the better to convince the American public that Democrats really had no choice but to jam through the bill on reconciliation. But instead, the Republicans who showed up generally looked reasonable and sincere.

To see what else has been said, check out our Research Briefing, “What They Are Saying… About The Blair House Summit.”

Even though today’s health care summit was advertised as an opportunity for bipartisanship, President Obama made it clear that he had no interest in listening to Republican ideas. As CBS Radio’s White House Correspondent Mark Knoller tweeted:  

@markknoller: Obama listening with his head resting on this hand...wipes his eyes as if weary. Looks down at the table, not at Boehner.

As bad as his body language was, that’s not all. President Obama himself spoke longer than all of the Republicans combined. 119 minutes for Obama, 110 for all Republicans, and 114 minutes for all other Democrats. He was able to talk so much because he kept cutting people off, interjecting himself into everyone’s time. As Politico’s Chris Frates note

Whenever a Republican makes a point, Obama fields the follow up explanation or rebuttal, leaving congressional Democrats largely on the sidelines speaking when spoken to.

We put together the best examples of Obama cutting off Republicans and looking disinterested ... more

President Obama told people he thought today’s bipartisan summit would be “an exercise in truth-squading.” But Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid made some seriously false statements today. Here at the RNC, we spent the day engaging in a rapid response effort, and you can view the archive of our live blog below, including hundreds of reader comments

To see today’s “Top Five Falsehoods,” check out this RNC Research Briefing.

We’ve highlighted before the amount of waste associated with the Census, including paying workers who did not work and running a $2.5 million Super Bowl ad.  Now it appears that Census Bureau is also paying for 2 million fortune cookies that have messages such as:

                Put down your chopsticks and get involved in Census 2010.

You may wonder where money for fortune cookies is coming from.  After all, it doesn’t seem like something taxpayers should be paying for.  In July, the Census Bureau announced that they received $1 billion in stimulus funds to be used for the 2010 census operations.  With the long list of waste, fraud and abuse associated with the stimulus it is not surprising that taxpayers are now paying for fortune cookies.  As we pointed out before, Sheriff Biden was supposed to police the stimulus, but in the end, “they messed with Joe.”

On Monday, we asked “Will Obama Listen To Governors?” because states are such an integral part of our health care system. Even governors from his own party have expressed grave concerns about having the costs of President Obama’s government-run health care experiment being pushed onto their already strained budgets.

So, at his big summit tomorrow, which is supposed to be where people with different opinions and perspectives can get together to discuss the options, Obama appears to have declined requests to include governors. This is simply further evidence that the Democrats have already made up their minds and that the summit is just for show.

Polls have consistently shown that Americans oppose the Obama-Reid-Pelosi government-run health care experiment. Despite this, Democrat arrogance led them to party line votes ramming through partisan bills in the House and Senate that will raise the cost of health care, hurt small businesses, and force some Americans to change the coverage they like.

The Democrats are at it again, and this time they’re committed to circumventing the traditional rules in the Senate and using budget reconciliation to get their experiment on Obama’s desk. When Obama meets with a bipartisan group of House and Senate leaders tomorrow, will he listen to the American people and start over? To learn more, check out Research Briefing, “Will Obama Listen To Americans?”

After he failed to deliver on the unions’ top two priorities – passing card-check legislation and comfirming their anti-business NLRB nominee, SEIU lawyer Craig Becker – Obama may now be trying to pay back labor unions by appointing SEIU boss, Andy Stern, to the administration’s newly created debt commission. The question is this: why is Obama considering appointing a union boss to a commission tasked with lowering the deficit when that union boss is only interested in increasing government spending and expanding the number of (unionized) government workers?

As The Washington Post points out, the influence of labor unions in the public sector has led to unsustainable increases in state spending: 

The more pertinent claim against organized labor may be on the public-sector side, where unions put significant pressure on state budgets, particularly with pension obligations. A new study by the Pew Center on the States finds a $1 trillion gap between what the states have promised their ... more

Buried in the news over the weekend was Obama’s announcement that he is supporting requirements for banks to have more capital-on-hand as a part of his financial regulation reform package. But as we read his proposal, we couldn’t help but note that it’s his third policy announcement regarding banks in as many months:  

• DECEMBER: Obama brought the CEOs of America’s largest banks to the White House and exhorted them to lend more.

• JANUARY: Obama rolled out his so-called “bank fee”, which imposes a tax on bank liabilities, greatly diminishing any incentive for banks to lend.    

• FEBRUARY: The Financial Times reports that the Obama administration is pushing for higher capital requirements for banks as the “main thrust of its regulation reform.”

So let’s get this straight: under Obama’s plan, banks need to lend more, then pay taxes on their liability, while trying to keep more cash on hand. Sound impossible?  We thought so too.

Obama may have enjoyed being a law professor, but ... more

In his Saturday address, President Obama promoted his upcoming “bipartisan health care meeting” and said that he hopes both parties “come in a spirit of good faith.” But Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) knows Obama’s true intentions:

“[T]his bill is a 51 vote plan and not a 60 vote plan – that is great news … These concessions to Republicans are in the hopes of winning their support … This will simply not happen. We need to stop bargaining against ourselves.”

When Democrats like Congressman Weiner are praising the lack of bipartisanship in Obama’s plan to ram the Senate Democrats’ bill through reconciliation, Americans know what the White House’s true intentions are, a slap in the face to the vast majority of Americans who say that we need to start over on health care.

Obama has consistently argued that the Democrats’ health care legislation would lower premiums for families. These claims have been consistently disproven. In his new reconciliation proposal, Obama is recommending the creation of a new agency to give the federal government sweeping new powers to implement price controls on health insurance:

[I]f a rate increase is unreasonable and unjustified, health insurers must lower premiums, provide rebates, or take other actions to make premiums affordable.  A new Health Insurance Rate Authority will be created to provide needed oversight at the Federal level and help States determine how rate review will be enforced and monitor insurance market behavior.

But if the plans really did what they’re advertised to do, Obama wouldn’t need to create this new agency. Let’s not forget that he also wouldn’t have to create this new agency if he adopted the GOP plan, which was judged by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office to lower premiums. ... more