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Obama’s First 100 Days:
Higher Spending. More Debt. New
Taxes. Broken Promises.
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) today
released a comprehensive taxpayer timeline of President Barack
Obama’s first 100 days in office.
Day 1 -- January 20: In his
Inaugural address, President Obama makes a noteworthy
commitment to the American taxpayer:
“And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be
held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our
business in the light of day, because only then can we restore
the vital trust between a people and their government.”
Day 7 -- January 26: Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is
sworn in by Obama despite having owed more than $40,000 in back
taxes and interest.
“Make no mistake: Tax cheaters cheat us all. And the IRS
should enforce our laws to the letter.” (Sen. Tom
Daschle speaking on the Senate floor on May 7, 1998)
Day 14 -- February 2: In order to ensure “What happens
in Chicago, stays in Chicago” by preventing corruption and
kickbacks arising from the “stimulus” bill, ATR asks each Member
of Congress planning to vote for the bill to
sign a statement promising that they, their family, and the
members of their staff will not personally benefit from the
bill. All refuse.
Day 15 -- February 3: Tom Daschle withdraws his
nomination due to tax problems.
Chief Performance Officer-designate Nancy Killefer withdraws her
nomination due to tax problems.
Day 16 -- February 4: On the sixteenth day of his
presidency, Obama breaks one of the central promises of his
campaign by singing into law a 156 percent increase in the
federal excise tax on tobacco, a hike of 61 cents per pack,
which took effect on April 1. Obama promised repeatedly on the
campaign trail that he would never raise any form of taxes on
those making less than $250,000 per year, for example:
“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family
making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax
increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your
capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes”
(September 12, 2008, Dover, NH)
"No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama's
plan will see one single penny of their tax raised,"
Joe Biden said, "whether it's their capital gains tax, their
income tax, investment tax, any tax."(Joe Biden,
Oct. 3, 2008, Vice Presidential Debate, St. Louis, MO)
The tax increase falls squarely on the shoulders of the middle-
and low-income Americans Obama said he would not raise taxes on:
55 percent of smokers are “working poor”, one in four smokers
live below the poverty line, and on average, smokers, whose
median income is a little more than $36,000 make about 30
percent less than non-smokers.
Day 21 -- February 9: Calling for a massive government
spending program under the guise of “stimulus” Obama holds his
first press conference and fails to provide a single historical
example where a government increased spending which led to
increased jobs, income, and wealth on any sustainable basis.
Obama also has the audacity to claim the “stimulus” plan is free
of pet projects and earmarks:
“What it does not contain, however, is a single pet
project, not a single earmark, and it has been stripped of the
projects members of both parties found most objectionable.”
Responding to a reporter’s question as to what specific metric
the American people should use to determine whether Obama’s
programs are working, Obama replies:
“I think my initial measure of success is creating or
saving 4 million jobs.”
(How, exactly, does one measure a “saved” job? See March
4 for details)
Obama promises that the next day “Tim Geithner will be
announcing some very clear and specific plans for how we are
going to start loosening up credit once again.”
Day 22 -- February 10: Instead of offering specifics in
his testimony to the Senate Banking Committee, Geithner issues
vague statements and echoes FDR’s economically paralyzing
“bold, persistent experimentation” philosophy:
“We will have to adapt our program as conditions change.
We will have to try things we’ve never tried before. We will
make mistakes. We will go through
periods in which things get worse and progress is uneven or
interrupted.”
The Dow falls 380 points.
Day 23 – February 11: Obama speaks to employees of
heavy-machinery manufacturer Caterpillar,
claiming that the “stimulus” bill would allow the company to
hire back many of the employees it had previously laid off.
Day 24 -- February 12: The day after Obama tells
Caterpillar workers the stimulus will save their jobs, the
company’s CEO James Owen
states “The honest reality is we're probably going to have
more layoffs before we start hiring again.”
Sometime around 10:00 PM: The “Stimulus” conference
report is completed behind closed doors. Less than sixteen
hours pass before the bill is taken up by the House.
Day 25 -- Friday, February 13:
2:24 PM: With not a single Member voting for the bill
having claimed to have actually read it, the House
passes the conference report for H.R.1, the “American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009”.
5:29 PM: With not a single Member voting for the bill
having claimed to have actually read it, the Senate
passes the conference report for H.R. 1.
Day 29 -- February 17: Obama signs the “Stimulus” bill
and violates his transparency pledge to the American people that
he will allow legislation to be posted online for five full days
before signing it.
“No more secrecy. … when there's a bill that ends up on my
desk as president, you, the American voter, will have five
days to look online and find out what it is before I sign
it, so that you know what your government's doing.”
(June 22, 2007. Manchester, New Hampshire)
The below is copied directly from the
Ethics section of BarackObama.com:
Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed
through Congress and to the president before the public has the
opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign
any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an
opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for
five days.
Day 36 -- February 24: Obama makes his
first address to a joint session of Congress and claims he
doesn’t believe in “bigger government”:
“As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send
me a recovery plan by Presidents Day that would put people back
to work and put money in their pockets, not because I believe
in bigger government -- I don't -- not because I'm not
mindful of the massive debt we've inherited -- I am.”
Obama again has the audacity to claim the “stimulus” bill
contained no earmarks:
“Now,I'm proud that we passed a recovery plan free of
earmarks, and I want to pass a budget next year that ensures
that each dollar we spend reflects only our most important
national priorities.”
Day 38 -- February 26: Obama releaseshis budget outline
which
raises taxes on individuals, employers both large and small,
and shareholders -- while eliminating several energy tax
credits.
The budget also calls for a “cap and trade” regime, making an
absolute mockery of Obama’s central campaign promise not to
raise any form of taxes on those making less than $250,000 per
year.
Obama also shatters his campaign promise to enact net spending
cuts during his administration:
“So we’re going to have to make some investments but we’ve
also got to make spending cuts, and what I’ve proposed -- you’ll
hear Senator McCain say ‘he’s proposing a whole bunch of new
spending’ -- but, actually, I’m cutting more than I’m spending.
So that it will be a net spending cut.” (Oct. 7,
2008. Second Presidential Debate, Nashville, TN)
(The Obama FY 2009 budget increases federal spending to
28.5% of GDP, a post World War II high.)
Day 41 -- March 1: The Obama administration foreshadows
another broken promise when Peter Orszag, appearing on This
Week with George Stephanopoulos, claims the 8,000 earmarks
in the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 are “last
year’s business. We just need to move on.” The
statement by Orszag in not consistent with Obama’s campaign
promise made in the first presidential debate:
“And, absolutely, we need
earmark reform. And when I'm president, I will go line by line
to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.”
(Sept. 26, 2008. First
Presidential Debate, Oxford, Miss.)
Day 43 -- March 3: Obama compares the stock market to a
political daily tracking poll:
"The stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in
politics. It bobs up and down day-to-day," Obama said. "And if
you spend all your time worrying about that, then you're
probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong."
Day 44 -- March 4: While testifying before the Senate
Finance Committee, Secretary Geithner is
challenged by committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) as to
the invention by the Obama administration of a new metric –
“creating or saving” jobs – the very same metric Obama claimed
on Feb. 9 is the most important measure of success:
SEN: MAX BAUCUS:"You created a situation where you cannot
be wrong. If the economy loses 2 million jobs over the next few
years, you can say yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs.
If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have
lost 2.5 million jobs," Baucus said. "You've given
yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because
you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct."
CNN
visits the site of the first “stimulus” dollars to hit the
ground: An $8.5 million bridge near the town of
Tuscumbia,Missouri – population 223.
Day 46 – March 6: The
Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the unemployment rate
rose from 7.6% to 8.1%, and the economy shed 651,000 jobs in the
month of February.
Day 51 -- March 11: Obama signs HR 1105, the Omnibus
Appropriations Act of 2009, a $410 billion piece of legislation
containing over 8,000 earmarks. By signing the bill, Obama
breaks at least three of his most important campaign promises:
- Transparency -- Obama
promised to post passed legislation online for five full days
before signing it. Obama signed the Omnibus spending bill
less than a day after he received it from Congress.
“When there is a bill that ends up on my desk as
President, you, the American voter, will have five days to
look online and find out what it is before I sign it.
(June 22, 2007. Manchester, New Hampshire)
- Overall spending – Obama
promised to enact net spending cuts as President. The Omnibus
bill is more than 8 percent higher than 2008 spending levels.
“So we’re going to have to make some investments but we’ve
also got to make spending cuts, and what I’ve proposed -- you’ll
hear Senator McCain say ‘he’s proposing a whole bunch of new
spending’ --but, actually, I’m cutting more than I’m spending.
So that it will be a net spending cut.”
(Oct. 7, 2008. Second Presidential Debate, Nashville, TN)
- Wasteful spending – Obama promised to “go line by
line” to make sure taxpayer money was not wasted. Among the
questionable spending in the Omnibus bill is an earmark which
sticks taxpayers with a $200,000 tab for a tattoo removal
program in California.
“And, absolutely, we need
earmark reform. And when I'm president, I will go line by line
to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.”
(Sept. 26, 2008. First
Presidential Debate, Oxford, Miss.)
Day 52 -- March 12: While testifying before the Senate
Budget Committee, Treasury Secretary Geithner acknowledges tax
increases “hurt growth” – then proceeded to duck questions as to
whether President Obama’s planned tax hikes would go into effect
in 2011 regardless of the condition of the economy:
SEN. MIKE CRAPO, R-Idaho: “You say that the tax
increases will only happen when the economy has recovered. I
understand that a lot of economists are saying we are going to
be recovered by 2011. Frankly I think there are economists who
are saying maybe our recovery will not be so strong by then.
My question to you is, are these tax increases contingent
on a recovery or are they going to happen regardless of what
happens in 2011?”
SEC. GEITHNER: “Senator, I think it is a very
important question. I think, again, we need to lay out an
ambitious path for bringing those deficits down, commit to
achieving that with a mix of measures on the resource side and
the spending side to do the best possible job of leaving our
economy stronger, and that’s what the President’s budget tries
to do. Now of course we are going to have to watch how the
economy evolves and I want to underscore that
one of the mistakes governments have made over time in dealing
with economic crises is putting the brakes on too quickly or in
ways that hurt growth just as it’s starting to take hold. We
just want to be careful not to do that.”
SEN. CRAPO: “So are you saying if we don’t see the
more rosy picture in 2011 that we may not see the Administration
suggest that we move to enact tax increases?”
SEC. GEITHNER: “I’m just saying that recovery
requires that we keep stimulus sustained until growth is in
place but we have to do it in a fiscally responsible way.”
Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Act Accountability and
Transparency Board (RAT Board)
cautions that it would be at least a year before
recovery.gov,
the website that is supposed to be tracking “stimulus” spending,
will be running properly. He also points out that there will be
waste and fraud:
“I'm afraid that there may be a naive impression that
given the amount of transparency and accountability called for
by this act, no or little fraud will occur. My 38 years of
federal enforcement experience tells me that some level of waste
and fraud is unfortunately inevitable."
Day 57 -- March 17: The Providence Journal reports
that the city of Pawtucket in Rhode Island will be using
$550,000 in federal “stimulus” money to build a skateboarding
park and renovate tennis and basketball courts at a local high
school.
Caterpillar
announces it is laying off 2,454 employees.
Day 58 -- March 18: Obama extols Treasury Secretary
Geithner: “Nobody's working
harder than this guy. You know, he is making all the right
moves in terms of playing a bad hand. I have complete
confidence in Tim Geithner and my entire economic team.”
Day 60 -- March 20: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)releases
a
report on the cost of Obama’s budget. According to the
report:
Day 64 -- March 24: During the second press conference
of his presidency, Obama tells the nation his budget moves
“from an era of borrow-and-spend to one where we save and
invest.”
Obama also
falsely claims his
budget
“will
provide a tax cut to 95 percent of all working families that
will appear in people’s paychecks by April 1.”
In reality, it is
impossible to cut taxes for “95 percent of working families.”
According to IRS data,
one-third of all income tax filers do not have an income tax
liability. About 15 percent of all working families do not even
have a FICA tax liability, and these numbers are before taking
into effect all the new refundable tax credits in the Obama
budget. For these “working families,” all Obama’s budget will
do is cut them the equivalent of a welfare check.
Day 66 -- March 26: An Associated Press
story reports that the Obama Administration’s claims to
“save and create” jobs through the “stimulus” package cannot be
substantiated. ATR says “ We
told you so.”
Day 70 -- March 30: Obama signs the Omnibus Public Lands
Management Act, a bill containing numerous earmarks, including
$3.5 million to celebrate the 450th Anniversary of St Augustine,
Florida in 2015.
Day 71 -- March 31: The White House discloses that
Kathleen Sebelius, its second nominee to head the Department of
Health and Human Services, had to pay $7,040 in back taxes.
Onvia, a Seattle-based company launches
Recovery.org. While the administration is looking to lower
expectations regarding recovery.gov, recovery.org
already contains much more useful information that the
administration’s site which primarily boasts
spin and propaganda
The GAO releases a
report on TARP underscoring the lack of transparency and
accountability in the program.
Day 72 -- April 1: On April Fool’s Day, Obama’s first
broken promise goes into effect: His promise not to raise any
form of taxes on those making less than $250,000 per year.
Signed into law back on Feb. 4, on just the sixteenth day of his
presidency, the 156 percent –61 cents per pack -- cigarette tax
increase falls largely on the shoulders of middle and low-income
Americans.
“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family
making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax
increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your
capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”
(Barack Obama, September 12, 2008, Dover, NH)
"No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama's
plan will see one single penny of their tax raised, whether it's
their capital gains tax, their income tax, investment tax,
any tax."(Joe Biden, Oct. 3, 2008, Vice Presidential
Debate, St. Louis, MO)
Asked about the tax increase/broken promise, White House
spokesman Reid H. Cherlin
said"The president's position throughout the campaign
was that he would not raise income or payroll taxes on
families making less than $250,000, and that's a promise he has
kept.”
Day 73 -- April 2: The House and Senate pass the Obama
budget outline
Day 74 -- April 3: Day 74 -- April 3: A Wall Street
Journal story
notes that CBO’s budget estimate from March also quietly
revised the cost of TARP up from $189 billion in January to $356
billion.
The
Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the unemployment rate
rose from 8.1% to 8.5%, and the economy shed 663,000 jobs in the
month of March.
Day 75 -- April 4: Responding to questioning as to why
Obama has not met his
promise to post legislation online for five full days before
signing it into law, senior advisor David Axelrod
answered“Have we achieved everything we want to
achieve yet? No. We’ve actually been a little preoccupied. We’re
trying to deal with some major challenges here.”
Day 78 -- April 7: Janet Napolitano’s Department of
Homeland Security releases a report titled “Rightwing
Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling
Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment”
Day 85 -- April 14: Asked about the tax day tea parties
being held the following day, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs
said“I don't know if the President is aware of the
events.”
Day 86 -- April 15: At least
578,000 Americans attend at least
540 tax day tea parties across the country.
On this day in 1990,
Leona Helmsley is ordered to report to prison for not paying
her taxes.
On this day in 2009, Tim Geithner is Treasury Secretary and runs
the IRS.
Day 88 -- April 17: Despite her tax problems, Kathleen
Sebelius wins Senate Committee approval.
Day 90 -- April 19: Obama senior advisor David Axelrod,
appearing on the CBS Sunday morning show Face the Nation,
describes the taxpayer tea parties as “unhealthy”.
Day 91 -- April 20: Obama insults taxpayers by calling
for a mere $100 million in spending cuts from the federal budget
within 90 days.
- $100 million represents .003%
(three one thousandths of a percent) of Obama’s FY 2010 budget.
- $100 million is what the
federal government spends every 13 minutes.
- As Harvard Economist Greg
Mankiw
points out, cutting $100 million from the federal budget is
the equivalent of a family spending $100,000 per year cutting a
$3 latte from the annual budget.
Attempting to defend the paltry amount of proposed cuts, Obama
spokesman Robert Gibbs
tells reporters : “I'm not making jokes about it. I'm
being completely sincere that only in Washington, D.C. is $100
million not a lot of money. It is where I'm from. It is where
I grew up. And I think it is for hundreds of millions of
Americans.”
Day 93 -- April 22: Happy Earth Day? Obama sends three
cabinet officers to Congress to testify in favor of the energy
provisions in his budget, threatening Americans with a
$10,000 tax hike per year on every American family once
fully phased in.
A GAO
report warns of a lack of accountability and oversight for
“stimulus” spending, and points out the slow pace of spending in
spite of Vice President Joe Biden’s
assertion that “stimulative spending is ahead of
schedule.”
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