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The Obama Watch
Obama's LBJ Syndrome
From millions to trillions, the ghost of Johnson's credibility gap haunts Democrats.
Ambushed at Credibility Gap.
-- Anti-Lyndon Johnson button popular in
the 1960s
The 1967 board game was called "Credibility Gap."
Created by two academics, it was inspired by what now might be called LBJ Syndrome, the pattern of behavior exhibited in the 1960s by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. A pattern of behavior that gradually led Americans to the belief LBJ was a hopeless teller of untruths. "Credibility gap" was the much used political term of the day applied to Democrat LBJ whether talking about subjects major (Vietnam, the economy, health care) or minor (insisting an ancestor fought at the Alamo even though said ancestor was soon found to have never arrived in Texas until a decade afterwards.)
As Americans listen to the smooth assurances from President Obama that his health care plan would cost $634 billion over 10 years, a look back at how liberal assurances like these actually work out in practice is in order. Specifically, let's take a look at the smooth assurances in 1965 from LBJ as to the costs he saw for Medicare. Medicare, of course, was the liberal health care panacea for seniors enacted into law by LBJ and a Democrat Congress in July of 1965 and is a fixture of today's America.
So how much was Medicare supposed to cost the American people?
Promised a solemn LBJ: $500 million a year.
You read that right. The cost of Medicare was projected to be $500 million -- million with an "m" -- a year. So said LBJ himself. Repeatedly, as he noted in his 1971 memoirs. So too did a March 11, 1965 story in the New York Times insist that: "Federal appropriations of about $500 million a year from general tax revenues would be required" to pay for Medicare.
What has the actual cost turned out to be?
In a report in February 2008, barely a year ago, the Wall Street Journal noted the trustees of Medicare admitted "Medicare's unfunded liability is $74 trillion.…According to the Congressional Budget Office, health-care spending is on a course that could crowd out all other government programs."
Crowd out all other government programs. Think of what that means. The current Obama budget proposal is a mind-bending $3.5 trillion. It funds everything from the entire Pentagon to all those 9,000 earmarks up to and including Iowa Senator Tom Harkin's now infamous study of smelly Iowa pigs. Yet it would vanish inside the black hole of the fiscal universe that is Medicare without a trace.
Crowed a gleeful LBJ in his memoirs about securing passage of his Medicare bill: "Forecasts of disaster continued right up until the day Medicare went into effect. There were predictions…that the system would collapse under its own weight. The Commissioner of Social Security, the Secretary of HEW [Health, Education and Welfare, the predecessor bureaucracy to today's Department of Health and Human Services] and I personally tried to reassure the public that such ominous predictions would not materialize. After one such reassuring statement had been issued, I said to John Gardner [the Secretary of HEW]: 'John if you're wrong in your calculations, we're both going to look like the worst kind of damn fools.'"
FORTY-FOUR YEARS LATER, disaster looms. The Medicare system (along with other government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae) is collapsing of its financial weight right in front of our eyes. John Gardner was in fact wrong in his calculations. LBJ's promise of the cost of Medicare now makes him look exactly like the "worst kind of damned fool" if not, as was frequently charged at the time, a serial liar with a "credibility gap." In 2009 the country is $74 trillion hell and gone from the LBJ promise that $500 million a year and a few tax tweaks here and there would usher in the milk and honey of affordable health care for seniors.
What's remarkable is that this kind of short historical memory is precisely what Obama and his followers are so brazenly counting on. Do they know this kind of history? Of course they do. These are not stupid people. They are doing what they are doing with a cold-blooded deliberateness, economic disaster be damned. Why? They are about nothing more complex than giving themselves a crack-like fix from gaining power and holding power. Wielding power, not creating private sector jobs that are at the heart of a healthy economy (and hence an affordable private health-care system), is the very root of a community organizer's mind set, community organizing the job the President used to launch himself into the Illinois State Senate. As with LBJ, who launched his own political career with a community organizer-like job from the Roosevelt administration (he was appointed head of the Texas National Youth Administration, a perch he used to get elected to Congress), Obama is portraying himself increasingly as someone who will do and say whatever is required to hold and maintain power.
Only this past Friday Obama looked the country in the eye and said today's health-care system was causing an American bankruptcy "every thirty seconds." When the data was questioned, Obama's chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, Christina Romer, blithely looked into TV cameras and brightly answered "I'll have to check the numbers but the idea is absolutely true." And there it was: a snapshot of Obama's LBJ Syndrome in action. Say whatever you need to say in the moment, do whatever you need to do so you can get and hold power, in this case the power to reshape America's health-care system for liberal special interest groups. Who in turn will re-elect and re-elect and so on ad infinitum.
The trick the Obama crew learned from LBJ, who in turn learned it from FDR, is to focus always on the promise, never on the results. Just as LBJ cited homey letters from seniors ("Please try to pass Medicare for us old folks," Johnson quoted one elderly letter writer from Illinois) to highlight the need for his $500 million, so too Obama's "Forum on Health Reform" last Thursday in the White House counted a group of "Everyday Americans" among the special interest lobbyists gathered to discuss the need for his $634 billion health plan. You can bet these folks had not a clue of LBJ's Medicare history, nor, presumably, were they told.
About the Author
Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (57) | Leave a comment
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Deborah| 3.10.09 @ 6:59AM
And yet, we have Americans who just love this guy. They're all happily riding in the back seat as Obama drives the country off the cliff.
Is reality that hard to face? Come on, Republicans, look where we're headed and grab the steering wheel before it's too late.
Rocco| 3.10.09 @ 7:08AM
My dear Mr. Lord,
You may have been assuming many Americans have a solid grasp of history and even care. I wished it were true, but the reality of it is ugly. We have a citizenry (if it can be called that today), indoctrinated by a dumbed down (consciously, I believe) by a unionized, self-serving educational establishment working hand-in-glove with the Democrats, which is fat, dumb and happy, concerned with nothing more than "bread and circuses" in the form of "government cheese" and American Idol. The land of the free and home of the brave has become a flock of sheep, ripe for the fleecing. I wouldn't count on the Republicans - I have stated enough times on this site what I think of these psychologically castrated fools.
stu.b.con| 3.10.09 @ 7:46AM
It comes down to the simple fact that NO, there is barely an iota a grasp of history and an even less of a grasp of the economic and political implications of the obama's and his lemmings plans for our "future". Our society has gone past ignorance, even though there is more info available than ever, to a state of willful ignorance.
And yes Rocco, I agree with you that the dumbing down and indoctrination of the lemmings has been a conscious and concerted effort on the part of the liberal/socialist/democrats since the '30's and the venerated socialist "father" FDR.
I do take umbrage however with your blanket statement on Deborah and I being psycologically castrated fools. Yes, there are many, many useless fools who identify themselves as Republicans---oddly they are not conservatives like myself, they seem to fall into 2 categories 1. liberal r.i.n.o.'s or 2. self important opinionated cynics like yourself who prefer to cast stones and generalize in order to feed your insatiable ego. Oh, and do nothing.
You are no more the smartest man in the room than the obama, get over yourself
frost| 3.10.09 @ 7:54AM
Amen, Rocco. That's all, amen (and I'm a Deist!).
phil| 3.10.09 @ 8:20AM
And still, even though everyone wants to look at history, they still don't see what is happening. Why is Medicare running out of money?? What happened to the tax dollars supposedly destined for Medicare?? How long has anyone really been interested enough to ask the government to account for the tax dollars to insure that they are being used for the intended reason. This is the first time that the government has even attempted to be open about costs and expenditures. Did anyone ever think that Medicare was the fund that everyone dipped into when they wanted to fund a pork project. Look it up.....
Deborah| 3.10.09 @ 9:05AM
Just for the record, I've never registered as a Republican. They've mostly been the lesser of two evils.
Good article from Byron York in the D.C. Examiner on how the Founders would want Obama's plans to fail.
Madison specifically set up the Senate to stand in the way of those "misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men"...Who does that sound like? His name starts with an "O".
York says the 41 Republican senators should be standing in the way, instead of letting Obama describe all of his policy prescriptions in terms of a crisis (health care, education, environment). Which let's Obama get away with not addressing the actual crisis at hand.
You can read it here: http://www.dcexaminer.com/politics/Why-The-Founding-Fathers-Would-Want-Obamas-Plans-to-Fail-40992107.html
Louis Jenkins| 3.10.09 @ 9:27AM
The point is quickly arriving when the taxpayer can no longer add to the golden cow of government. In fact, it is already here. Sharing the wealth, patriotic duty, each man according to his ability, are all just useless platitudes in this wrecked economy. The promises/programs/bailouts of today cannot be financed on the backs of a service economy workforce. Hard core manufacturing/exporting hit the skids twenty years ago and with it the jobs that made the US the world power house of the mid twentieth century. The US consumer has borrowed himself silly, sometimes at the facilitation of “Fanny Mac and Freddie Mae”, and cannot repay his debts. The consumer has not only drank the coolaid of “you too can live the good life” but has also allowed it to be administered by enema, douche, and intravenously. We have been reassured by Dr. Obama, and his team of specialists, that the current treatment plan will cure our ailments and we will once more walk upright. Just take your medicine little fella and you’ll get better! However, the more aid they render the sicker the patient becomes.
How much more blood can the taxpayer donate (confiscated) to revive this dying patient? And a gracious amount of this pathological disease started with LBJ. ‘The War on Poverty’ is failing, and more people are being taken prisoner everyday. Soon the POW camps will be filled to capacity by formerly producing taxpayers. Then what? In reality BIG GOVCO cannot take care of us. How long before we awake to this truth? Which is worse- the disease or the treatment? We are being lied to, misled, and hoodwinked by a bunch charlatans and ‘common’ brigands.
Sons Of Sam| 3.10.09 @ 9:28AM
Just for the record, how did LBJ get elected in the first place? Wasn't it at least partly because "moderate" Republicans sat by with arms folded and did nothing to help Goldwater?
We need to stop fighting among ourselves, and thumping our chests and talking about who's "more worthy". We need to remember Reagan's 11th commandment, and we need to unite in the face of tyranny. Anyone who thinks that the teleprompter in chief is going to stop at spending us in bankruptcy is missing the point. He HATES this country, and all that it has ever stood for! We need to stop fighting each other and concentrate all our fire against the ObamaNazis and their amen chorus in the lapdog media
until freedom dawns,
Son Of Sam
http://www.geocities.com/samadamssos/
stu.b.con| 3.10.09 @ 9:59AM
sorry for my assumption Deborah.
The article by Byron York is indeed excellent, definitely a must read.
Sons of Sam---Right On!
Rocco| 3.10.09 @ 10:22AM
Stu.b.con:
First off, you don't know me any more than you know the man in the moon, so for you to make the statement you make about me is just plain bullshit to put it mildly.
Second, when I refer to "Republicans," I always refer to our so-called representatives, senators and professional party leaders who make a living of politics, NOT any grass roots Republicans such as yourself or anyone else in this forum who are productive citizens who care deeply for this country. At the end of the day, we are on the same side. Any disagreement among conservatives plays into the hands of our opponents. Judging from what you write, you appear to be as frustrated as the rest of us. So let's wise the hell up and direct our fury to those who deserve it!
Rocco| 3.10.09 @ 10:40AM
Also, as a 30-year retired Marine veteran, I am entitled to an insatiable and outrageous ego..... LOL.
frost| 3.10.09 @ 10:50AM
Some excellent observations -- thanks Deborah too. It's comforting, knowing that there are some other people around actually able to put a few positive thoughts together, even in the midst of a narcissistic neo-Marxist and his socialist bunch.
In the meantime, a semi-tongue-in-cheek kinda "warning" -- always treat the word "comprehensive" with extreme caution.... Anytime it's used, it's usually in connection with the most obnoxious legislation imaginable, probably designed to reassure/snow, but more smoke'n'mirrors...
Now, if you'll excuse me, gotta work on cleaning the pool.
Peter McGrath| 3.10.09 @ 10:58AM
The issue, for either LBJ or FDR, was never, ever, the efficacy of these programs (Medicare and Social Security, respectively). Rather, the issue was the promise that those programs held for Democrats getting a death grip on power in Washington. Social Security and Medicare were set up to assuage (i) the fear of penury in old age, and (ii) the fear of becoming ill in old age. The legacy of FDR and LBJ was the false promise that the Federal Government would address those fears. Not surprisingly, anyone relying solely on Social Security in their old age truly is living in penury. Anyone solely relying on Medicare (without private supplemental insurance) will not receive adequate care. In both cases, the government utterly failed to deliver what was promised - what a surprise! Obama promises more of the same on a far vaster scale than either FDR or LBJ could even imagine. The misery Obama will inflict on the elderly and infirm is hard to imagine. It will be played out upon millions of victims in government sponsored nursing homes and hospitals. With the government in charge, it will only a matter of time before euthanasia is commonly practiced - as a "humane alternative" -and as a means of reducing the cost of keeping the inconvenient elderly alive.
Alan Brooks| 3.10.09 @ 11:03AM
LBJ was even worse than Carter, he turned the Vietnam war into a bloody abortion that haunts us to this day.
Deborah| 3.10.09 @ 11:04AM
Good points, all. It was Ben Franklin who said, "We must all hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately."
We must unite in the spirit of 1776...our country hasn't been in this serious of a crisis since the Civil War in my estimation.
Those trying to pit Rush against Steele against Newt against social conservatives against neo-cons against conservative Democrats, etc.... are trying to get us all to hang separately.
As someone said on one of the videos of the American Tea Parties (I think from Asheville, NC--not known as a real conservative part of the state)..."This is not a Democrat issue or a Republican issue, it's an American issue." Amen, lady!
Alan Brooks| 3.10.09 @ 11:05AM
Vietnam led to Watergate, Watergate led to Carter's presidency.
Rocco| 3.10.09 @ 11:08AM
frost:
Amen, brother!!!
Man, you are one in a million.....take it easy with the pool!!
Ate logo, amigo!
Rocco| 3.10.09 @ 11:11AM
Deborah, how right you are. Read my post above; as I said, at the end of the day, we are on the same side and have the same objectives. Or, as you eloquently quoted Ben Franklin.
Be advised - I meant no offense to you or to stu.b.con......
Rocco| 3.10.09 @ 11:15AM
Plus, we on the conservative side ought to be "happy warriors," with a good sense of humor, going into the fight, not a bunch of sour pusses like the self-appointed messiah and his coterie!
Deborah| 3.10.09 @ 11:16AM
None taken, Rocco. I know how passionate you are about this country -- I recognize it, because I feel the same. TAS is a good place to spout off about it.
I agree -- we have the same objectives. Preserving this nation as a republic, not a socialist democracy.
Laney B| 3.10.09 @ 11:23AM
This nation no longer represents a cohesive cultural view. We are inundated by immigrants whose brush with democtratic republicanism is nil, and with a permanent undrclass whose major contribution to society is their wearing the mantle of victimhood. When a country becomes balkanized, as this one surely has, there is no striving to meet a common goal. A splintered nation of competing interest groups produces the type of power-grabbing centralized government because each faction looks to some overall authority to rule in their favor, and those with the most to gain get the attention they organize to attain.
We have relinquished the vision of The Founders, who recognized that the least government was the best government. A nation that is urbanized, dependent on foreign labor to control costs, and an educational system that indoctrinates rather than teaches is the sure route to civil war and demise.
The American Dream has become just that - a dream.
Obama Drools| 3.10.09 @ 12:00PM
Obama drools and the media eat it like fools.
Liberals hate history, they can re-write it, but can't change it.
Why they call themselves "progressives" is a mystery. They should be called "regressives". They want to go back and do 1930's style policy and put some chewing gum over it.
Son Of Sam| 3.10.09 @ 12:29PM
Hey there Rocco,
Just so ya know, I AM one very happy warrior, even if I sound more like the road warrior in my broadcasts. Being able to speak the unvarnished truth is a pleasure secondary to only a very few others
until freedom dawns,
Son Of Sam
http://www.geocities.com/samadamssos
jack| 3.10.09 @ 1:06PM
Obama has probably never heard of LBJ. The guy is an imbecile. Never forget this is the guy who thought Proper tire inflation should be an energy policy so we dont have to drill offshore. That statement alone should tell everyone the guy is an idiot.
His horrid treatment of Brown and Great Britain is another example of this guys absolute cluelessness. He has never held a real job. Has never managed anyone. Has never led.
His entire life has been facilitating payments to people who are not productive from those who are productive. Its all he knows.
Do you really believe this guy wanted to be a comm organizer? Of course not, no one would hire him because he was either too radical or not very smart. He is in payback mode for not being able to get a real job on wall street.
His wife didnt get a real job till Barry was able to get her one through his political connections. Sounds like the Clintons.
These people are the worst of America,they will destroy us. This guy appears to know very little history except that history that pertains to slavery.
It is obvious this guy can not move beyond race and his racist tendencies
Alan Brooks| 3.10.09 @ 1:13PM
better a road warrior than road kill.
stmichrick| 3.10.09 @ 1:19PM
Mr Lord's comment about the administrations'
results be damned attitude struck a chord.
Reminded me of the question, 'What's the difference between a Communist and a modern liberal?
Answer: The Communist KNOWS what he's doing.
Result: I don't think of the Obama people as liberals anymore. There is something American about the term 'liberal.'
These people are 'leftists;' the word fits because of its international banditry connotation.
Kind of like Che and Trotsky. There to gain power through chaos.
ruth| 3.10.09 @ 6:02PM
Great thread! Hope we can get our act together before it's too late.
Savy | 3.10.09 @ 8:34PM
Come on people. Obama is the answer! Yes, the Obama answer to our economic problem is to: tax more, spend more, play class warfare more, lie about his earmarks, lie about his tax cheats, lie about his lobbyists, oh...and call us rascist cowards. Yes, Obama is the answer. What a guy.
Bram| 3.10.09 @ 10:21PM
I thought LBJ Syndrome was the accumulation of a vast fortune while working as a "public servant."
Robert Pinkerton| 3.10.09 @ 11:54PM
Deborah, my solitary disagreement with paragraph 2 of yours of 10/03/09/1116 is an accidental omission: "Preserving this nation as a republic, not a socialist democracy." So far, so good, but it needs more: "... nor metropolis of an empire."
Bram, 10/03/09/2221: "In a mature society, 'civil servant' is semantically equal to 'civil master.'" -- HEINLEIN, Robert A., Notebooks of Lazarus Long, aphorism #47
COMMENTARY: 1. Michels on psychological metamorphosis of the leadership (Political Parties: An Enqiry into the Oligarchic Tendencies of Modern Democracy Part Three chapter I), Mosca on class separation (The Ruling Class, Chapter IV, "Ruling Class and Social Type," section 6)
2. IIRC, Charles deGaulle once characterized this country as having gone straight from infancy to senility without pausing in maturity. In flesh-&-blood bodies, as counterposed to the
(metaphorical) "body politic," such a condition is called progeria.
Uber Patriot Mike| 3.11.09 @ 1:17AM
Great thread! Thanks for deleting my posts! Your crowd of sycophants is going to explode with lust as you tell then what they already know. It's great journalism. *Thumbs up*
MT| 3.11.09 @ 1:44AM
Don't get pissy, Uber. Your comments were just too stupid to remain. Little libturds get their panties in a pinch. LOL
Ran| 3.11.09 @ 2:02AM
Peter M: "The legacy of FDR and LBJ was the false promise that the Federal Government would address those fears."
Exactly. FDR was all about the bullshit notion of "freedom from...".
Mr. Lord, thank you. [Please forgive me for not saying "Thank you L---!"] You've driven home the fact that this Administration is about securing eternal power for their Machine - It's nothing more than Chicago Illinois thuggery on major steroids.
Deborah| 3.11.09 @ 7:12AM
I've posted this link in another thread, but it seems very appropriate here. A short video of political systems. It is well done. Send it to your kids.
http://www.flixxy.com/political-systems.htm
Pingback| 3.11.09 @ 10:35AM
Pants on fire | Worth Reading links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
durdge ette obama| 3.12.09 @ 7:31AM
Re the 30-Second Rule which Obama defines as health care causing a bankruptcy every 30 seconds, that has to be a big lie.
Quick calculations show that there are (give or take) 31,556,926 seconds in one year divided by 30, amounts to 1,051,897.5 bankruptcy filings per year.
Compare that to the facts: 2005 saw 2.1 million personal filings, mostly due to people rushing under the wire to file Chapter 7 before the ill-named Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act came into effect. Given that, 2007 saw 819,115 personal filings. 2008 saw 1,086,130. Obama would have us believe that everyone of these was medical cost-caused. Not true.
As a practising bankruptcy attorney, medical costs are not the predominant debt in most bankruptcies. It is one cause. More common debts are abusive credit card debt, unrelated to medical costs. And job loss. Car repossession and bad financial management. While medical costs can cause bankruptcy, I see no trend here that it causes a bankruptcy ever 30 seconds or constitutes all bankruptcies. One way you can tell is from the types of debts contained in the debtor's schedules.
Obama lies when he makes up statistics without the underlying PROOF. I don't like fact-benders in court or in the White House. Where's the follow-up with Christina Romer?
Pingback| 3.15.09 @ 6:19PM
Freddie chief resigns. - VolNation links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 3.15.09 @ 6:41PM
Freddie chief resigns. - VolNation links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 7.14.09 @ 7:13AM
Diminishing expectations on reform « Healthcare Horserace links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
gfhfg| 11.26.09 @ 9:50PM
Mac TOD Converter,
TOD Converter for Windows
Pingback| 4.5.10 @ 1:24AM
Rachel Maddow, McCarthyite | Same Old Change links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 4.5.10 @ 10:12AM
Rachel Maddow, McCarthyite | NWOTruth links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
poptropica| 4.8.10 @ 9:19PM
Poptropica
Poptropica
vouchercodes| 1.6.11 @ 8:40AM
Let's see if Obama can keep his promise