Thursday, October 31, 2013

It Seems Undeniable that the President's Sales Pitch was Factually Incorrect.

The president of the Harvard Economics Department, Greg Mankiw, smacks the president and his staff:
President Obama is getting heat over his often repeated claim that, under his healthcare reform, "If you like your plan, you can keep it."  It is clear now that for millions of Americans, particularly those who participated in the individual insurance market, that is simply not true.  You can argue that the plan they will get under the Affordable Care Act is better, but it seems undeniable that the President's sales pitch was factually incorrect.

As someone who has previously worked for a President, I am fascinated by how the White House staff let President Obama so consistently and so publicly make a false statement.  Presidential speeches undergo a painstakingly thorough review process. It seems that there are only three possibilities:

1. The White House staff did not know the statement was false.  That is, they did not understand the law the administration was promoting.

2. The White House staff knew the statement was false, but they decided to keep this fact from the President.  That is, they let the President unwittingly lie to the American people.

3. The White House staff knew the statement was false and told the President so, but the President decided to keep saying it anyway.  That is, the President consciously decided to lie to the American people.

These are the only three possibilities I can envision.  None of them reflects particularly well on what has been going on in the White House.

15 comments:

  1. I am shocked, SHOCKED, that the President would lie!

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  2. Aside from the lobbyists who wrote the thing, I doubt anyone knew what was in it. Certainly, the then Speaker of the House didn't. It's unlikely the distinguished constitutional scholar who occupies the White House did either.

    Mankiw's boy was known to have made a factually incorrect sales pitch or two, as did his predecessors. That's what presidents do. It's the job. You'd think the world's greatest textbook salesman would understand that.

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    1. Oh, I get it, all politicians lie so it's no big deal when the worlds greatest community organizer lies in order to nationalize one seventh of the economy. Hey, you didn't by any chance vote for The Dear Leader did you?

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    2. Anon 2:31, I voluntarily withhold my consent. All politicians lie, whether they are nationalizing one seventh of the economy or killing hundreds of thousands in an unending war.

      I hope you will come to see that voting for the candidates of any party does nothing to further the interests of liberty. Stay home next election day and send these grifters a resounding vote of no confidence.

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    3. I have stayed home and not voted for the past 4 years. I hope that one day that might change, but not holding my keys in my hand.

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  3. The Progressive mindset is that they are building a utopia on Earth. A small lie for your own good is no different than the pediatric dentist saying he is going to put a drop of medicine on that tooth to make it go to sleep - expressly denying that there are any needles involved. Truth would just make you resistant top something you need and are going to get.

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  4. I guess there's a fourth option: the staff told him the statement was false, and advised against his peddling of it, but Obama refused their advice and consciously lied to the people.

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  5. Obama went to Harvard Law School. Obama is in charge of the people who write the zillions of Federal Regulations which are published in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Are his supporters saying that he does not know this and that he does not know how to access the CFR?

    EBSA Final Rules

    Group Health Plans and Health Insurance Coverage Relating to Status as a Grandfathered Health Plan Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Interim Final Rule and Proposed Rule [6/17/2010]

    Using these turnover estimates, A REASONABLE RANGE FOR THE PERCENTAGE OF INDIVIDUAL POLICIES THAT WOULD TERMINATE, AND THEREFORE RELINQUISH THEIR GRANDFATHER STATUS, IS 40 PERCENT TO 67 PERCENT. These estimates assume that the policies that terminate are replaced by new individual policies, and that these new policies are not, by definition, grandfathered.

    Filed 6-14-10; 11:15 am

    http://webapps.dol.gov/FederalRegister/HtmlDisplay.aspx?DocId=23967&AgencyId=8&DocumentType=2

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    1. He also signed off on it. Is he saying that he didn't understand what he helped pass?

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    2. Is he saying that the entire Democrat party, the party of trial lawyers, does not know how to look up stuff contained in the CFR? First year law students take a class in learning how to look up stuff in the law library.

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  6. He knew. He just didn't care.

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    1. pretty much he's had his accountability moment last year and so now he's set for the high priced dinner circuit if he continues to do what he's told.

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  7. Mankiw's is best known in academia for his work on New Keynesian economics.....same crap under different
    political parties. We trust the same who gave us 9-11, housing bubble, and the current monetary bubble of all bubbles. I say, shut the hell up. Both parties are the same....lie, cheat, and steal

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  8. Hey, hardly a surprise! After all, this is the same propagandist who recently got away with the following:

    “Now, this debt ceiling — I just want to remind people in case you haven’t been keeping up — raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy. All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you’ve already racked up, Congress. It’s a basic function of making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved.”

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  9. What has to be passed so you can find out what's in it?

    A stool sample.

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