Barack Obama's five empty promises
Getting more Americans to go to college will not create any more jobs, but it will create more debt. Americans now owe more than $884 billion on student loans, which is more than the total amount that Americans owe on their credit cards.
Empty Promise #3: America Will "Out-Build" The Rest Of The World And This Will Create More Jobs
So Barack Obama says that we are going to "out-build" the rest of the world?
Well, that certainly sounds good.
But what exactly does that mean?
Does it mean that we are going to quit shutting down our factories and tearing down our economic infrastructure?
After all, over 42,000 U.S. factories have closed down for good since 2001.
So is Obama going to do something to stop the flood of jobs and factories that are leaving the United States?
No, in fact he intends to "increase" trade with countries such as China and India. That is going to mean that thousands more factories and millions more jobs are going to be "outsourced".
Well, what about building up infrastructure such as roads, bridges, power grids, dams and ports?
That is certainly a very good idea.
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, we need to spend approximately $2.2 trillion on infrastructure repairs and upgrades just to bring our existing infrastructure up to "good condition".
So we desperately need some investment in that area.
But there is a big problem.
We are flat broke.
As will be discussed below, the U.S. government is flat broke. Not only that, our state governments are flat broke and our local governments are flat broke.
So where will the trillions of dollars that we need for infrastructure come from?
Obama did not even come close to answering that question.
Empty Promise #4: America Will Become "The Best Place In The World To Do Business" And This Will Create More Jobs
It was incredible that Barack Obama could suggest that America is "the best place in the world to do business" with a straight face.
First of all, when you consider all forms of taxation, U.S. businesses face one of the most oppressive taxation regimes in the entire world.
But not only that, U.S. businesses also have to deal with one of the most horrific regulatory environments in the history of mankind.
As I have written about previously, the mountains of red tape that U.S. businesses have to wade through just continues to grow every single year.
The Federal Register is the main source of regulations for U.S. government agencies. In 1936, the number of pages in the Federal Register was about 2,600. Today, the Federal Register is over 80,000 pages long.
So is Barack Obama going to do anything about that?
Of course not.
In fact, Barack Obama and the Democrats have been really busy passing even more ridiculous regulations.
For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is projecting that the food service industry will have to spend an additional 14 million hours every single year just to comply with new federal regulations that mandate that all vending machine operators and chain restaurants must label all products that they sell with a calorie count in a location visible to the consumer.
Empty Promise #5: Barack Obama Pledges To "Take Responsibility" For Our Deficit Spending
During Barack Obama's first two years in office, the U.S. government added more to the U.S. national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined.
In fact, since Barack Obama took office, the U.S. government has gotten us into so much new debt that it breaks down to $10,429.64 for each of the 308,745,538 people counted by the 2010 U.S. census.
So is that "taking responsibility" for our deficit spending?
When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. national debt was 10.6 trillion dollars.
Today it is over 14 trillion dollars.
Government debt is absolutely out of control. At this point, the U.S. national debt is increasing by roughly 4 billion dollars every single day.
If all of this debt is not brought under control, it will bring down the entire U.S. financial system. According to a recent U.S. Treasury report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will reach 19.6 trillion dollars in 2015.
Can you imagine being 20 trillion dollars in debt?
That is 20,000,000,000,000 dollars.
So it would be really great if Barack Obama could do something about all of this debt, but based on his track record perhaps we should not be holding our breath.
Not that Obama is to blame for all of this.
The sad reality is that both parties have been involved in a massive debt orgy for decades and decades. Now the day of reckoning is almost here and it is going to be incredibly painful.
We are in so much trouble that it is hard to even try to put it into words. None of our politicians are telling us the whole truth. We are headed for a complete and total disaster.
Michael Snyder
