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The Obama Watch
Obama's LBJ Syndrome
(Page 2 of 3)
IS THERE EVENTUALLY a severe political downside to this approach? Fortunately for Republicans, yes. Over time, LBJ Syndrome eats at presidential popularity like political acid. But not before considerable damage is done to the country.
What the Obama White House may not realize is that LBJ's poll numbers began dropping, never to recover, in July of 1965 -- barely months after his landslide re-election. This was ruefully noted by ex-Johnson aide and current PBS commentator Bill Moyers in a 1967 appearance on NBC's Meet the Press. Nineteen sixty-seven was the year after a spectacular GOP surge in Congress and a year before Republicans regained the White House they would hold for seven of the next eleven presidential elections through 2008. July of 1965 is also exactly the month that Johnson, to much media fanfare (he flew to Independence, Missouri to put government health-care enthusiast and senior citizen ex-president Harry Truman at his side for the cameras) signed the Medicare bill into law with all the rosy $500 million assurances that things would be just fine. Yes, there were other factors in LBJ's decline from a popularity that exceeded even that of Obama to a humiliating withdrawal from his re-election race in 1968. Vietnam, riots and the inflationary shocks to the economy of massive Great Society spending, to name but three. But none took as serious a toll individually as the growing feeling that whether the subject was Medicare or any number of other issues, LBJ, in pursuit of unchallenged political power, was utterly incapable of telling the truth.
This is why conservatives are right to laser in on the gauzy, warm and fuzzy liberal rhetoric that has in historical practice become a trademark verbal canary-in-the-coal mine. It always signals some explosive new liberal disaster -- if not an outright untruth -- in the making. Perhaps just as importantly, it is also why it is necessary to recognize that the scrutiny accompanying the presidency reveals Obama already exhibiting visible signs of LBJ Syndrome. The pattern of behavior that shows a repeated willingness to manipulate, to deliberately deceive -- or to lie. Incidents ranging from Obama's less-than-candid explanations of his relationships with Reverend Jeremiah Wright and terrorist William Ayers foretold his now abandoned pledges to stop earmarks or appoint lobbyists to his government or, as in his health reform talk, his use of the false 30-second bankruptcy factoid. All are small yet vivid illustrations of an Obama credibility gap in the making.
Social Security is another example of the liberal mathematical scam Obama is employing. Said FDR in 1935 on the financing idea behind his new Social Security program, as quoted in Kenneth S. Davis's pro-Roosevelt history FDR: The New Deal Years 1933-1937: "It is almost dishonest to build up an accumulated deficit for the Congress of the United States to meet in 1980. We can't sell the United States short in 1980 any more than in 1935." But just as LBJ swore up and down that a mere $500 million would finance Medicare in 1965, in 1935 FDR promised a financial support system for Social Security that saw nothing but green pastures ahead. Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, insisted "a reserve fund…of $50 billion (later reduced to $47 billion) by 1980, with not a dollar of it coming from the federal treasury."
Got that? Social Security would be $50 billion with a "b" to the good by 1980.
What did FDR think of Morgenthau's assurances? Says Davis: "He did express some concern [on the possible] deleterious effects on the general economy. He was soothed when Treasury Department economists told him it would not [have a negative effect on the economy]." Indeed, FDR found it positively "exhilarating" that Social Security would be so successful financially it would be capable of "forever freeing the government of any dependence whatever on private lending institutions! The reserve might even be used, somehow, to reduce the national debt."
By 1980, FDR's promise of a reserve fund holding $50 billion had long since become a joke.
IT IS WORTH NOTING that among the FDR enthusiasts in 1935 was a young radio sportscaster named Ronald Reagan, a self-described "near hopeless hemophiliac liberal." Yet by the time LBJ was making his Medicare proposals a centerpiece of his 1964 re-election campaign, the now-conservative and much wiser Reagan understood exactly how this particular liberal scam worked. He was a hemophiliac liberal no more. Reagan, in his famous television speech for GOP nominee Barry Goldwater, not only correctly predicted LBJ's Medicare proposal would inevitably be engulfed in a sea of debt if passed, he noted Social Security was then "$298 billion in the hole!" By 1980, Reagan was himself elected to FDR's old job and within months of taking office was told that far from the FDR promise of a $50 billion reserve the fund would need an infusion of $75-to-$100 billion over five years just to keep it solvent. In spite of a series of "reforms," by 2008 Richard Fisher, the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, was saying what everyone knew:
The amount of money the Social Security system would need today to cover all unfunded liabilities from now on -- what fiscal economists call the "infinite horizon discounted value" of what has already been promised recipients but has no funding mechanism currently in place -- is $13.6 trillion, an amount slightly less than the annual gross domestic product of the United States.
Again, understand that phrase. The amount of money needed for this one program only is "an amount slightly less than the annual gross domestic product of the United States."
Like his young protégé LBJ thirty years later in 1965 with his $500 million projection of the cost of Medicare, FDR wasn't even close in his assurances to the American people about the costs of Social Security. They were, as FDR himself noted, "dishonest." The FDR-Morgenthau projected Social Security reserve fund of $50 billion in 1980 was already running $298 billion worth of red ink by 1964, as Reagan had pointed out. Today that red ink is hovering around $14 trillion.
It is in this light that the smooth assurances of Barack Obama must be seen. It leaves him open to the charge that he's either "the worst damn fool" since LBJ when it comes to understanding health-care costs or, as the American people eventually concluded with LBJ, he is utterly incapable of being truthful. Obama is quite deliberately taking Americans down the same path as LBJ and FDR, like them giving his word of honor that, in Obama's case, a mere $634 billion spread over 10 years will right the presumed wrongs of American health care. Unlike FDR, who at least has the historical excuse he was doing this kind of thing for the first time, or, to try and be charitable to LBJ, who privately wondered if he could be wrong on the costs and look the "worst damn fool" in history, Obama very much knows better. He went to Harvard, didn't he? The numbers are in on Medicare. The numbers are in on Social Security. Yet none of this makes any difference to Obama. He has made it quite plain, as did LBJ, that he will do what he has to do. The truth be damned. Why? Because this isn't really about health care at all. It's about power.
In which case, recognizing that Obama appears to be showing a metastasizing case of LBJ Syndrome, the real question here for the rest of us should be this:
If $500 million dollars turns out to be a deficit of $74 trillion, and a reserve fund projected to be in the black by $50 billion in 1980 is already $298 billion in the hole by 1964 and is now down by some $14 trillion, how badly off is Obama's liberal math in 2009 about 2019?
Has the red flag planted by LBJ's stunningly bad math (or outright lie) taught us all nothing? Even amidst this Obama stimulus plan and that Obama bailout scheme and the other thing of the Obama budget?
Comments
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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?
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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:
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Diminishing expectations on reform « Healthcare Horserace links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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