On Tuesday September 8th President Obama will be speaking to students across the nation on the importance of education. Therefore Obama is clearly attempting to indoctrinate America’s youth to his socialist ideology, at least according to Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer
Part of Greer’s statement reads, "As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology. The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the President justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other President, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power."
Lets debunk Greer’s declaration piecemeal. As far as Obama being a socialist, that topic has been well covered here already, but I would like to add that Obama’s entire economic team (Timothy Geithner, Ben Bernanke, Austan Goolsbee to name a few) are all classical, centrist or Keynesian in their economic beliefs, not socialist.
As far as Obama using the speech to "justify his plans for government-run health care, banks and automobile companies," as many of you probably remember the banks initially came to the government asking for money in 2008 while threatening that if they did not get it a massive economic depression would occur and that bailout was passed under the Bush administration with Bush signing the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 into law hours after it made it through congress. The automobile industry also came to congress almost literally begging for money to stay afloat. It is not as if when Obama was sworn in he decided "time to take over industry!" these organizations wanted help and it only makes sense for the government to have some role in an industry when it is its largest shareholder. Though it is also worth mentioning that several of the banks "nationalized" under the Bush administration have since posted large profits and already paid of their loans with interest.
In regards to Greer’s statement that Obama is "increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other President, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans," it should be noted that in an attempt at bipartisanship Obama included over 280 billion dollars in tax cuts in his American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. As far as "racking up more debt that any other President", Obama is still far from Bush though he may eventually surpass him, but government spending is what Keynesian economics is all about, it is what got the United States out of the Great Depression. By the way, does Obama go "against beliefs of the majority of Americans"? I do recall an election last year where he received over 50% of the vote, and his overall approval numbers have yet to drop below 50%.
These comments made by Greer and others when seen in the context of the hate being spewed forth by people at "town hall" meetings or talk shows like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are part of a coordinated attempt to paint Obama as a extremist socialist President at best or an illegitimate, terrorist supporting fascist dictator who must be stopped by any means necessary at worst. The scary thing is they do seem to be having some impact. As demonstrated from The Free Republic or "freeping"/hijacking of an MSNBC poll and the comments made on it, though in recent hours there has been a 10% swing back to the "no" column being in the majority. Still, the effects can be seen all over the internet.
If anything the comments Jim Greer and those like him make display the need to stay in school better than anything Obama could say as they show ignorance and disdain for learning about history, economics and political ideology. Stay in school kids.
(crossposted at http://debunkerhill.com/ )