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The Spectacle Blog
President Obama today conceded that his administration “missed the mark” when it estimated the unemployment level if the stimulus package passed, but that didn’t stop him from making a series of dubious claims to push his health care agenda.
During his afternoon press conference, Obama was asked about the fact that the White House projected that unemployment would now be around 8 percent if the stimulus legislation passed, yet in reality it now stands at 9.4 percent and he says that it will reach the double digits.
“Keep in mind the stimulus package was the first thing we did, and we did it a couple of weeks after Inauguration, and at that point nobody understood what the depths of this recession were going to look like,” Obama said. “If you recall, it was only significantly later that we suddenly get a report the economy tanked. It’s not surprising then that we missed the mark in terms of estimates of where unemployment would go.“
Of course, at the time, President Obama was arguing that we were facing the worst crisis since the Great Depression.
Asked if he could estimate the peak unemployment rate, he said, “I’m not suggesting I have a crystal ball. Since you just threw back at us our last prognosis, let’s not engage in another one.”
Yet even though he’s suddenly shy about making prognoses, he said, “Here’s some things I know for certain. In the absence of the stimulus, I think our recession would be much worse.”
Of course, given that the same team that gave us the first set of estimates is in charge of calculating how many jobs are “saved or created” as a result of the stimulus package, it would be wise to avoid taking his statements at face value. Which brings us to health care.
During his opening remarks, Obama reiterated a promise he has made over and over again:. “There’s no doubt that we must preserve what’s best about our health care system, and that means allowing Americans who like their doctors and their health care plans to keep them,” he said.
Last week, the Associated Press reported that “White House officials suggest the president’s rhetoric shouldn’t be taken literally,” and Obama confirmed this when ABC’s Jake Tapper asked him about how Americans would lose their insurance if their employers decided to dump them in a new government-run exchange.
“When I say if you have your plan and you like it… and you have a doctor and you like your doctor, you don’t have to change plans, what I’m saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform,” Obama said.
In other words, the government will not force people to change plans. But this rather immaterial, given that independent analysts from the Congressional Budget Office to the Lewin Group have estimated that anywhere from 23 million to 119 million would lose their current health care, depending on the nature of the legislation as employers drop health care coverage and direct their workers to government.
Obama’s response during the press conference was to dip into the stimulus playbook and argue that even more people would lose their current health care if we did nothing.
“Let’s assume that nothing happened,” Obama theorized. “I can guarantee you that there’s a possibility out there that a whole lot of Americans, there are not going to have the same health care they have, because what’s going to happen is, as costs keep going up, employers are going to start making decisions, ‘we’ve got to raise premiums on our employees,’ in some cases, ‘we can’t provide health insurance at all,’ and so there are going to be a whole set of changes out there.”
So, essentially, this is the equivalent of arguing that legislation will “save or create” more employer-based health care than would have otherwise existed. Thus Obama can manufacture whatever numbers he wants.
Now as a matter of policy, there’s no particular merit in guaranteeing that everybody will get to keep their current health care coverage. Personally, I would support a health care proposal that eliminated the employer tax exclusion and transferred that benefit to individuals. Such a disruption to the current system would undoubtedly mean that some people would have to lose their current health care plans, even though I think we’d end up with a better system with expanded coverage, because individuals could choose their own plans rather than having an employer do it for them, those who are on their own could enjoy equal tax treatment, and people could take their policies with them from job to job.
But the point of drawing attention to this is to highlight Obama’s dishonest approach to health care, and governing in general. He doesn’t want to level with the American people and acknowledge that there are tradeoffs involved in any major policy initiative. If people want to overhaul the entire health care system, it’s going to have an effect on every aspect of the system. This idea that we can change everything that people don’t like while preserving everything that people do like, as if it exists in a bubble, is tremendously deceptive. Obama now has to backtrack on his stimulus claims, how will he react if health care passes and suddenly millions of Americans are losing the health care plan they like?
View all comments (14) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Philip Klein
http://spectator.org/blog/2009/06/23/obama-backs-off-wh-econ-estima
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Pete| 6.23.09 @ 3:27PM
“Here’s some things I know for certain. In the absence of the stimulus, I think our recession would be much worse.”
“Let’s assume that nothing happened,” Obama theorized. “I can guarantee you that there’s a possibility out there that a whole lot of Americans, there are not going to have the same health care they have..."
What courage! What conviction! He is 'certain that he thinks' and can 'guarantee the possibility' - Wow! He's really putting himself out there. What an arrogant jackass.
Malcolm | 6.23.09 @ 3:39PM
How does the language 'What an arrogant jackass' enhance the discussion ? Obama's logic is sound enough even if Pete, very obviously, does like him - you can be certain that you think something and you can guarantee a possibility. They may be thin statements but they are true statements. Better, perhaps, to offer a view, Pete, that extends thought than merely asserts feeling.
Pete| 6.23.09 @ 3:50PM
"thin but true" - I'd say you started to get the point Malcolm. It's the same lawyerly crap Clinton used to pull. The point is, here is he in front of the American people, trying to sell them on even bigger government, and the best he can muster are the equivocations cited above? If he actually believed what he was saying, why not come out and say, "This WILL do this, this WILL do that." You can guarantee the possibility of practically anything. Instead, I believe he is being purposefully deceptive - you hear the tough words "certain" and "guarantee" and you might be distracted enough not to hear what comes after. And what comes after absolutely negates the toughness and certitude projected by the language that precedes it. Perhaps it was difficult to infer my meaning from the original post, but I hope his clears it up for you, Malcolm. I think arrogant jackass is quite fitting.
Tim| 6.23.09 @ 3:56PM
"Asked if he could estimate the peak unemployment rate, he said, “I’m not suggesting I have a crystal ball. Since you just threw back at us our last prognosis, let’s not engage in another one.” "
Threw it back? I like that move. It makes the press sound spiteful and mean. The nerve of some people.
JP| 6.23.09 @ 4:21PM
What I find amazing, is that for all of the President's glamour, sophistication, cool, and intellectual prowess, he is sounding horribly off key. Every new day, and every speech he comes up with new spin, new excuses, and vague promises. His administration is barely out of its honeymoon stage, and already the toll of the office is being seen. It wasn't suppose to be this hard.
President Reagan also had a very difficult first year (actually the first 2 were very trying) as well. Besides being shot, Regan saw the economy go into a tailspin (due to Paul Volcker's much needed interest rate hikes), he was being hammered over his vodoo economics (which would eventually pass); his rhetoric vis-a-vis the Soviet Union; his pick of Al Haig at Foggy Bottom; and open dissention within the GOP (gott love those moderates). In 1982, the GOP would lose seats in both Houses.
I am not the least surprised the economy is still shedding jobs. Home foreclosures are still occuring, and real estate prices have yet to stabilize. The March-June stock market rally was just a suckers rally, as institutional investors attempted to recoup some of thier 2008 loses. Even energy markets were operating in a fantasy world of optimisim. Speculatos were just hoping against hope that consumer demand would recover this summer, and despite large unsold inventories of both oil/gas, the speculators pushed energy prices higher. Now, with the stock market sagging speculators are selling off again.
The President has lived in a cocoon for the last decade or so. His rapid rise shielded him from the realities of the world. Unlike Bill Clinton, who knew of failure, Obama has lived an enchanted political life. Sychophants of course egg him on, advisors paint a world for him that does not exist.
So, we have a man, who never had to build a business, or at least execute a budget, let alone make difficult command decisions, open the floodgates of easy credit, massive borrowing, and the record printing of money -all during a period where our defecits are dangerously high. Like late 1928-early 1929, all of this cash has flooded a system where no demand exist. Our consumer economy is tapped out -the consumers are on strike fearing for thier homes and jobs. Yet, for all of his nuance and sophistication our President couldn't figure this out. Now there is the very real danger of a bout of recessionary inflation. Think being out of a job is hard, try being out of a job with 15% inflation. So much for Hope and Change. Joe 6-pack who voted for Obama, because of his optimistm cannot for the life of him remember when the last time the President delivered a speech based on hope and not fear.
And all the while NKorea, China, Russia, and Iran lurk over the horizon.
Rachel| 6.23.09 @ 4:24PM
Obama is not difficult to see through. But you do have to open your eyes. I am glad to see more and more people seeing him for the exceptionally dishonest man that he is. I was always told that "figures don't lie but liars figure". How true.
Angel| 6.23.09 @ 5:27PM
Don't know about you, Malcolm--but Pete's "What an arrogant jackass," in reference to Obama, WORKS FOR ME!
Malcolm, you can put your glass of Kool-Aid down now.
ds80| 6.23.09 @ 6:49PM
“the stimulus package was the first thing we did .... a couple of weeks after Inauguration, and .... nobody understood what the depths of this recession were going to look like"
Ah. So we should have confidence in Obama/Geithner/et al simply throwing things to see what sticks?
Malcolm: "soundness of logic" does not imply non-trivial. This is a trivial statement: "I can guarantee you that there’s a possibility". Big woop-de-doo. So can anyone.
Yes, statements like that shout: I am an arrogant jackass.
Roy| 6.23.09 @ 7:22PM
Re:JP : Maybe so, but the stock market is still up pretty substantially. It had dropped to well below 7000 a couple times.
Angel| 6.23.09 @ 8:25PM
Uh, Roy; the stock market has barely recovered the losses it's incurred since Obama took office. Not sure that's a plus; but I do know that 9.4% (and skyrocketing) unemployment isn't. Spin that.
Ray| 6.24.09 @ 2:45AM
It amazes me when I hear conservatives cry out about spending and deficits after 8 years of rubber stamping the same from Bush. Democrats and Republicans borrow to fund their initiatives rather than paying for them with spending cuts. The only real difference is in what those initiatives are quite frankly.
Bush's 1.7tril tax cut was not paid for by offsetting spending cuts and we borrowed the 2tril we spent in Iraq. Conservatives mysteriously couldn't find their "tea bags" then, but now claim that "fiscal" discipline should be our top priority. That's until, of course, they begin their eventual drum beat for war with Iran--it will be fine for us to borrow 2tril to fund that naturally--its always fine for us to borrow to fund one more conservative military adventure of intervention (apparently now we're the international fair election police) but never to take care of our own people (what? you want 1tril for health care? that's outrageous, we need that to indoctrinate those muslim savages...hippie).
The hypocrisy is stifling. Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II all failed to reduce the deficit and actually doubled or tripled it. In what has become a constant practice of the media, the proposal of a tax cut or a war are never challenged by any "how will you pay for that" inquiry--while every entitlement program targeted at the poor, no matter how minuscule in scope , is simply savaged by the media with deficit talk (a conservative reporter recently went after funding school lunches for inner city kids by remarking that "hunger is a good motivator").
That's how conservatives pass off their intellectually dishonest nonsense about "trusting the people with the money more than big government." Please spare me. If you trust the people with the money "more", that means you "take" the money away from government and give it to the people--you don't leave government with its money and then simply borrow the cash you'll later hand out to your rich corporate enablers and cronies.
A legitimate Bush tax cut would have demanded 1.7tril in spending cuts. But what's more is that a legitimate conservative movement would have refused to endorse or defend those tax cuts unless such a spending cut accompanied them. But Rush and the conservative movement defended Bush's credit-card tax cuts nonetheless didn't they? So much for "generational theft". You can rage all you want my dear right wingers. After 8 years, you've been exposed.
During the campaign, John McCain said that "republicans came to change Washington, but Washington changed them". McCain never told us "why" that happened or "why" conservatives sat on their hands "idly" while it did, but the truth was always there between the lines for any who would seek it...and that truth quite simply is that the entire conservative belief system is far less ideology and far more political gamesmanship. You don't actually "believe" anything and post-George W. Bush, we all know it.
You demonstrate as much everyday. After the election, McCain's opposition to the stimulus included a suggestion that we should go with a 2.5tril tax cut stimulus instead...he never proposed 2.5tril in spending cuts to pay for it and, of course, the media, still dancing, never asked how he'd pay for it(even though McCain's plan would have required that we borrow 2.5tril instead of 787bil)...later the GOP put out an absurd budget with a 10% rate reduction in the top marginal rate...as usual no spending cuts were mentioned and the media did it's funky chicken routine...it goes on and on...typical conservative nonsense. Here's the truth: You don't trust the people "more", you simply trust "more" people not to notice.
Mike| 6.24.09 @ 8:20AM
Ray & All Liberals Re: Deficits: "But Bush did it too, so you can't say anything!! Whaaa." Is George W. Bush posting on this site right now? Not that I'm aware of. Argue the substance please, it makes you sound more grown up.
Pete| 6.24.09 @ 9:58AM
"while every entitlement program targeted at the poor, no matter how minuscule in scope , is simply savaged by the media with deficit talk"
Ah yes, that conservative media...shame on them. I am dumber for having read that post.
D.R.| 6.25.09 @ 3:40AM
Ray, I have no love for the deficits signed into law by President Bush... I seem to recall that there were plenty of pigs at the trough from your side of the fence that bloated some of those bills... "whaaaa... we can't cut that!" So this is what we got... bloated bills, and don't mistake my hammering on you and your ilk as finger pointing, there where plenty of "RHINOs" doing the same thing.
Just stop the "deflect the blame" and acknowledge that some of the wonderful things going on in the "Beltway" will do nothing but make things WORSE.