Jake Tapper: A Whole lot of Promises

November 1st, 2008 By: Michael van der Galien | Tags:

ABC News’ Jake Tapper, who has been one of the few journalists working for major American news outlets who were reasonably fair and intellectually honest during this year’s campaign, realized Friday that Senator Barack Obama has made a whole lot of (expensive) promises to Americans, but has yet to show how he is going to pay for them.

Here is a small list of the many promises Obama has made:

  • “give a tax break to 95 percent of Americans who work every day and get taxes taken out of their paycheck every week”;
  • “eliminate income taxes on Social Security for seniors making under $50,000″;
  • “give homeowners and working parents additional tax breaks”;
  • not increase taxes on anyone if they “make under $250,000; you will not see your taxes increase by a single dime –- not your income taxes, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains tax”;
  • “end those breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas”;
  • “give tax breaks to companies that invest right here in the United States”;
  • “eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-up companies that are the engine of job creation in this country”;
  • “create two million new jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads, and bridges, and schools — by laying broadband lines to reach every corner of the country”;
  • “invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy to create five million new energy jobs over the next decade”;
  • “reopen old factories, old plants, to build solar panels, and wind turbines”;
  • build “a new electricity grid”;
  • “build the fuel efficient cars of tomorrow”;
  • “eliminate the oil we import from the Middle East in 10 years”;
  • “lower premiums” for those who already have health insurance;
  • “if you don’t have health insurance, you’ll be able to get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress give themselves”;
  • “end discrimination by insurance companies to the sick and those who need care the most”;
  • “invest in early childhood education”;
  • “recruit an army of new teachers”;
  • “pay our teachers higher salaries, give them more support. But … also demand higher standards and more accountability”;
  • “make a deal with every young person who’s here and every young person in America: If you are willing to commit yourself to national service, whether it’s serving in our military or in the Peace Corps, working in a veterans home or a homeless shelter, then we will guarantee that you can afford to go to college no ifs ands or buts”;
  • “stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq whole the Iraqis have a huge surplus”;
  • “end this war in Iraq”;
  • “finish the fight and snuff out al Qaeda and bin Laden”;
  • “increase our ground troops and our investments in the finest fighting force in the world”;
  • “invest in 21st century technologies so that our men and women have the best training and equipment when they deploy into combat and the care and benefits they have earned when they come home”;
  • “No more homeless veterans”; and
  • “no more fighting for disability payments.”
  • In case you are wondering when he made all those promises: he made them all today, in just one speech in Florida.
    And how does Obama suggest he’s going to pay for these grand plans?
  • “Washington is going to have to tighten its belt. It’s going to have to put off spending on things we don’t need. As president, I’m gonna go through the federal budget, line-by-line, and we’re going to end programs that we don’t need. We’re gonna have to make the ones we do need work better and cost less.”
  • Of course, he’ll soon be “asking folks who are making more than a quarter million dollars a year to go back to the tax rate they were paying in the 1990s before the Bush tax cuts.”
  • And in a way of attempting to head off at the pass any criticisms that there’s no way the U.S. can afford all this, he says supporters should tell skeptics that ending the war will save the U.S. $10 billion a month.
  • Of course even a child can understand that these money saving measures are not going to even pay for a quarter of Obama’s plans, meaning that the U.S. debt will either increase significantly under Obama or, and this is possible as well, he’ll raise taxes on virtually every American during his term, explaining to them then that it is absolutely ‘necessary’ to do so. Or, of course, he’ll simply break 95% of his promises, because there is no way he can pay for them.
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    1. David L.
      November 1st, 2008 at 01:21
      Reply | Quote | #1

      Obama’s promise of everything to everybody amounts to a promise of revolution. In revolutionary times the gap between promise and performance is filled, as a rule, with the bodies of those who persist in calling attention to the gap. You may take “bodies” figuratively or literally, just as you choose.

    2. Michael Merritt
      November 1st, 2008 at 06:43
      Reply | Quote | #2

      I’ll take option #3.

      Politicians generally make wacky promises they’ll never fulfill. Lets take this president.

      I’m still waiting for that switchgrass ethanol. I mean, to even hear anything about research and/or development.

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