by: Thomas Lucente
There he goes again.
We’ve all grown accustomed to President Barack Obama spending our money like water but most of the time it is for his communist … I mean liberal … political agenda of creating a single class — poor. Because that is what happens when government try to make everyone have the same amount of stuff. Look at China, Cuba or the former Soviet Union if you want real-world examples.
Now, though, he has taken his spending to a new level. He is spending our money to enrich himself.
On a recent trip to three battleground states, Obama, spending more
than $179,000 an hour to make the trip, attended campaign-like rallies
trying to drum up support for a faux battle over student loan interest
rates. There was no dispute, mind you. Republicans and Democrats alike
were not going to allow the rates to spike and were working on a
solution in the Congress, without controversy, to prevent that from
happening.
In fact, his chief rival for the White House, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, also supported a plan to keep the rates from spiking, as did GOP and Democratic leadership in the Congress.
That, however, did not stop Obama from visiting these three battleground states and pretend there was some issue at stake.
However, Obama looking like a fool is not what concerns me. He does that all the time.
The problem is his complete disregard from the laws of this nations in doing so. The taxpayers footed the bill for this campaign trip, when it really should have been paid for by his re-election campaign.
His trip to college campuses in North Carolina, Iowa and Colorado was clearly not government business. It was obviously a campaign-related trip.
Apparently this is nothing new for Obama.
As a candidate, Obama pledged to strengthen the Federal Election Commission. Nearly four years later, he has not done so and, in fact, five of the six commissioners are serving on expired terms.
That’s because a strong elections law regimen would stand in the way of his blatantly skirting those laws.
Only in one case has he complained about campaign laws and that is the Supreme Court’s rightly decided decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which found that the First Amendment still matters.
He complains about the decision because it is going to make it harder for him to win re-election because corporations will be able to donate money to political action committees that will report on his activities. This would not be necessary if the media today did their jobs, but they don’t so it is incumbent on others to showcase the record, or lack thereof, of this clown in the White House.
As for Obama’s trips, he is claiming they are official travel.
But that doesn’t pass the smell test.
Or, as Speaker John Boehner said, “The president traveled across the country on taxpayers’ dime at a cost of $179,000 an hour insisting the Congress fix a problem that we were already working on. Frankly, I think this is beneath the dignity of the White House.”
What Boehner didn’t say, but probably knows, is that much of Obama’s official travel these days is taking place in swing states. CBS’s Mark Knoller reported that Obama has visited Ohio 20 times, Florida 16 times, Pennsylvania 15 times, Michigan 11 times, and North Carolina 10 times since filing for re-election.
Obama’s “official” travel has become so obviously campaigning that the Republican National Committee has filed a formal complaint, accusing his administration of potentially committing fraud by combining campaign and official business.
For presidents, there has always been mixing of official business with campaigning. It is probably unavoidable.
As former Republican National Committee Chairman Rich Bond told The Associated Press in 2004 when George W. Bush was under fire for the very same thing: “Using federal government assets is unavoidable in terms of having contact with everyday people and it’s a topic that White House lawyers from Ford to Carter to Reagan to Bush to Clinton and now to Bush have all struggled with to make sure that you don’t break the law.”
However, it appears Obama is taking it to a new level.
There he goes again.
We’ve all grown accustomed to President Barack Obama spending our money like water but most of the time it is for his communist … I mean liberal … political agenda of creating a single class — poor. Because that is what happens when government try to make everyone have the same amount of stuff. Look at China, Cuba or the former Soviet Union if you want real-world examples.
Now, though, he has taken his spending to a new level. He is spending our money to enrich himself.
In fact, his chief rival for the White House, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, also supported a plan to keep the rates from spiking, as did GOP and Democratic leadership in the Congress.
That, however, did not stop Obama from visiting these three battleground states and pretend there was some issue at stake.
However, Obama looking like a fool is not what concerns me. He does that all the time.
The problem is his complete disregard from the laws of this nations in doing so. The taxpayers footed the bill for this campaign trip, when it really should have been paid for by his re-election campaign.
His trip to college campuses in North Carolina, Iowa and Colorado was clearly not government business. It was obviously a campaign-related trip.
Apparently this is nothing new for Obama.
As a candidate, Obama pledged to strengthen the Federal Election Commission. Nearly four years later, he has not done so and, in fact, five of the six commissioners are serving on expired terms.
That’s because a strong elections law regimen would stand in the way of his blatantly skirting those laws.
Only in one case has he complained about campaign laws and that is the Supreme Court’s rightly decided decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which found that the First Amendment still matters.
He complains about the decision because it is going to make it harder for him to win re-election because corporations will be able to donate money to political action committees that will report on his activities. This would not be necessary if the media today did their jobs, but they don’t so it is incumbent on others to showcase the record, or lack thereof, of this clown in the White House.
As for Obama’s trips, he is claiming they are official travel.
But that doesn’t pass the smell test.
Or, as Speaker John Boehner said, “The president traveled across the country on taxpayers’ dime at a cost of $179,000 an hour insisting the Congress fix a problem that we were already working on. Frankly, I think this is beneath the dignity of the White House.”
What Boehner didn’t say, but probably knows, is that much of Obama’s official travel these days is taking place in swing states. CBS’s Mark Knoller reported that Obama has visited Ohio 20 times, Florida 16 times, Pennsylvania 15 times, Michigan 11 times, and North Carolina 10 times since filing for re-election.
Obama’s “official” travel has become so obviously campaigning that the Republican National Committee has filed a formal complaint, accusing his administration of potentially committing fraud by combining campaign and official business.
For presidents, there has always been mixing of official business with campaigning. It is probably unavoidable.
As former Republican National Committee Chairman Rich Bond told The Associated Press in 2004 when George W. Bush was under fire for the very same thing: “Using federal government assets is unavoidable in terms of having contact with everyday people and it’s a topic that White House lawyers from Ford to Carter to Reagan to Bush to Clinton and now to Bush have all struggled with to make sure that you don’t break the law.”
However, it appears Obama is taking it to a new level.
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