SYMBOLISM OR SUBSTANCE

 

The President took a “VICYORY LAP” the other day claiming in his latest speech that the doubter’s had to admit now that they were all wrong about the affordable care act. He bragged about all the people who could now, for the first time, afford to buy health insurance. If this isn’t about the clearest case of putting symbolism over substance I don’t know what is.

Mr. President, for a person to afford health insurance they first need to have a paying job or enough savings to pay the premiums. Jacking up the health insurance premiums for most people so that the formerly uninsured can get insurance for little or no cost is not an example of those formerly uninsured people finally being able to afford insurance. They are not affording the insurance, the rest of us are. My wife and I lost our health insurance because of the ACA and now we pay double what we paid before and the deductable is higher also. Sure the plan covers all kinds of things that we did not have covered before but at our age the maternity and child care coverage is stupid. I know that I am paying for health care insurance for others that choose not to pay for it themselves so don’t fling that BS around about how “they” are finally able to afford it. The act is not affordable and does not improve healthcare quality or availability in America; saying so in a speech does not make it so! When the historians write the history of your time in office it is going to be a tale of unfulfilled promise, of a historic opportunity squandered by a self indulgent man who has led a pampered life and thought that riding around in a big jet to make speeches was being Presidential. It’s not Mr. Obama; the office of the President comes with the responsibility of being the President of all the people not just campaign donors and special interest groups. You declared that the recession to be over based on some economist’s technical model and the inflection point on some graph but 90 million people are out of the work force and your declaration of victory is based the unemployment rate dipping to 6.7%. Everyone knows the real unemployment rate is over 14% and getting worse. For all your fancy rhetoric you are still just a pretender to the throne, you have all of the trappings of the office but command none of the respect. You are not respected by our allies or enemies and you cannot even manage to make our enemies fear you even though you command the greatest military the world has ever seen. Respect is earned not elected, you would know that if you had ever been forced to earn your way in life with a real job.

The private sector innovates and spends capital to create jobs and the President Claims credit for saving the economy, please, if you can’t help us at least don’t insult us. The depth of the disaster that our economy is really experiencing is hidden from view like the wizard behind the curtain because the FED prints money and makes the Dow-Jones Industrial Average go up. The DJIA is just another symbol for the press to crow about with no substance behind it. The real value of our savings fades away because of the very real inflation that they tell us doesn’t exist. In an effort to hide the truth about inflation the press lets the government get away with calculating the number without considering food and energy prices. Unless I am mistaken we all eat and use energy and the cost of both have skyrocketed. Gasoline prices at the pump have tripled in the Presidents five years in office and yet they tell us there is no inflation. The only question left to answer about this administration is how much damage they will do to this country before we start fresh and bring back hope and opportunity for all Americans.