Obama attacks Bush policies in Bush's home state
President Obama arrives to deliver remarks at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas,, August 9, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Jim Young
AUSTIN, Texas |
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - President Barack Obama attacked the economic policies of his Republican predecessor George W. Bush in Bush's home state on Monday as evidence of the way Republicans would operate if given power in November 2 U.S. congressional elections.
At a fund-raising event for Democrats in Dallas, where Bush now lives, Obama said the former president's "disastrous" policies had driven the U.S. economy into the ground and turned budget surpluses into deficits.
Obama defended his repeated references to Bush's policies, saying they were necessary to remind Americans of the weak economy he inherited from Bush in January 2009.
"The policies that crashed the economy, that undercut the middle class, that mortgaged our future, do we really want to go back to that, or do we keep moving our country forward?" Obama said at another fund-raising event in Austin, referring to Bush's eight years as president.
In reminding voters about the policies of the unpopular Bush, Obama is trying to protect his fellow Democrats' majorities in Congress and limit anticipated Republican gains.
On November 2, voters will choose all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 37 members of the 100-seat Senate.
Republicans say they doubt Obama's effort to cite Bush as a reason to vote against them in November will work because Americans are more concerned about getting or keeping a job.
"When we talk about this 'going back' thing, I notice that some Republicans say, 'Well, he just wants to bash the previous administration, he's looking backwards.' ... No, no, no. The reason we're focused on it is because the other side isn't offering anything new," Obama said in Austin.
He said later in Dallas that Republicans were simply offering "retreads" of economic policies that "got us into this mess in the first place" and had no new ideas to offer voters.
One part of Bush's legacy remains a subject of intense debate in Washington -- the tax cuts for all Americans he steered through Congress in 2001 and 2003.
These expire at the end of this year, and a pitched battle has begun over whether to extend all or part of them.
Obama and the Democrats say tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 a year should be ended to help close the U.S. budget deficit. Republicans argue that no taxes should rise in a time of economic peril.
Obama, grappling with the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, 9.5 percent unemployment, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, soaring budget deficits and an impatient electorate, said all that Republicans have done is try to obstruct him at every turn.
'LACK OF SERIOUSNESS'
He said he has made tough decisions such as bailouts for the U.S. auto industry because he was not elected "to do what was politically expedient at the moment."
"There's been a fundamental lack of seriousness on the other side," Obama said.
Between political events, Obama gave a speech about the need to improve the U.S. education system.
The White House shrugged off a decision by Bill White, the Democratic nominee for Texas governor, not to attend Obama's events on Monday in Texas, a heavily Republican state.
"He definitely does not take that as an insult," White House spokesman Bill Burton said, referring to Obama.
The state's current governor, Rick Perry, a Republican running for re-election and said to be pondering a 2012 presidential run, made his presence known shortly after Air Force One landed in Austin.
Perry handed Obama aide Valerie Jarrett a letter from him asking for more federal assistance to tighten up security along the U.S.-Mexican border.
"Drug cartels and related forces are waging war in Northern Mexico, their tactics including death threats, torture, car bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and beheadings," Perry wrote.
Last week, the U.S. Senate approved a bill adding $600 million to border security efforts, a measure that the House of Representatives might also pass this week.
(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Caren Bohan; Editing by Will Dunham)
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It’s very difficult to discover any significant information about the scourge of the 14th Amendment, as we have today. For those who don’t fully understand, money is taken directly from taxpayers pockets in April to underwrite illegal aliens education, health care and all the commitments that go with these expenditures. This is principally because information has never been collected intentionally or otherwise, so we must rely on what is available; buried deeply in the pages of the internet? FOR MORE OPPRESSIVE FACTS, GO TO THIS PDF WEBPAGE? A report by Madeleine Pelner Cosman in the spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 2005., It augments from a small fire that is turning into a conflagration. She says, “By not addressing this abuse of the Fourteenth Amendment and enforcing immigration law, the funds that state and local governments must provide to anchor babies amounts to a virtual tax on U.S. citizens to subsidize illegal aliens.
The increasing number of illegal aliens coming into the United States is forcing the closure of hospitals, spreading previously vanquished diseases and threatening to destroy America’s prized health-care system,” The author writes, “”born to illegal aliens instantly qualify as citizens for welfare benefits and have caused enormous rises in Medicaid costs and stipends under Supplemental Security Income and Disability Income.” She adds that Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985, hospitals are obligated to treat the uninsured without reimbursement. “Illegal alien women come to the hospital in labor and drop their little anchors, each of whom pulls its illegal alien mother, father, and siblings into permanent residency simply by being born within our borders.
Anchor babies are citizens, and instantly qualify for public welfare aid: Between 300,000 and 350,000 anchor babies annually become citizens because of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.” In conclusion The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons report includes a strong prescription for protecting the health of Americans:
* Closing America’s borders with fences, high-tech security devices and troops. (But remember the real 2006 Secure Fence Act, was designed as two parallel fences. Not just–ONE–? It doesn’t seem to be turning on a light bulb in America’s brain, that two fences were supposed to be constructed adjacent to each other, with a roadway in between for interdiction of every type of criminal, including the millions of illegal aliens.) It’s time this question is asked of Senator Harry Reid and the dismantling of permanent E-Verify?
* Rescinding the U.S. citizenship of “anchor babies.”
* Punishing the aiding and abetting of illegal aliens as a crime. (That means employers with a prison sentence for habitual offenders.)
* An end to—ALL– amnesty programs. ( Declare ALL Sanctuary Cities are violation of federal law, and those involved prosecuted.)
THIS IS ANOTHER REITERATED EXCERPT FROM The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
“Cristobal Silverio family came illegally from Oxtotilan, Mexico, in 1997 and brought his wife Felipa, plus three children aged 19, 12 and 8. Felipa … gave birth to a new daughter, her anchor baby, named Flor. Flor was premature, spent three months in the neonatal incubator, and cost San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. Meanwhile, (Felipa’s 19-year-old daughter) Lourdes plus her illegal alien husband produced their own anchor baby, Esmeralda. Grandma Felipa created a second anchor baby, Cristian. … The two Silverio anchor babies generate $1,000 per month in public welfare funding. Flor gets $600 per month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets $400. Cristobal and Felipa last year earned $18,000 picking fruit. Flor and Cristian were paid $12,000 for being anchor babies.” This is of course Mexico, but other countries citizens are aware of this gaping hole, especially poor undeveloped countries. But for the price of an airline ticket, they can gain access to American hospitals and receive free natal treatment, as well as the baby born there where payment reverts to the taxpayer.
It should be noted that based on data collected in California for AFDC’s “children only” cases, the California Department of Social Services estimated that in fiscal 1994-1995, 193,800 children of illegal aliens received welfare, costing $553 million. One should wonder the ever increasing costs of supporting the anchor child, as food stamps and Section 8 housing can be applied for. One should wonder the ever increasing costs of supporting the anchor child, as food stamps and Section 8 housing can be applied for. One should also be aware that the mother, who is always allowed to stay, probably becomes pregnant at least twice more, of which the US taxpayer once again becomes the benefactor. In addition because the family is low income, they can apply for TANF, of which the baby receives a free car chair, diapers and much more compliments of Americans.
America should attract professional and highly skilled workers, who come to this country with their experience to offer. These scientists, engineers and tech people will never require supporting them with welfare or other government entitlements. What we don’t need is any more cheap, uneducated labor, as in America we are well supplied with many in the population that have no skills and do not even have a diploma. If we must have Guest Workers the must be rigidly regulated, with one job and cannot venture outside that farm environment. This includes no chain migration, so once their permit expires they must depart.
There are various undisclosed federal and state entitlement, which are denied to American mothers because our politicians are too busy catering to the less fortunate. This exploitation of the 14th Amendment is not necessary from expectant mothers from across the Southern border, but every year thousands converge on the unknowing taxpayer who coughs up the money to pay for subsidizing the life’s of whole families, after a new anchor baby is born. This unwholesome situation would become far worse as any new hype for AMNESTY, would induce millions more to reach the borders, plus the stream would never end. To stop any more illegals coming to America, we must first remove every Pro-Amnesty lawmaker, then implement permanently E-Verify and place troops on the border. Learn more at NUMBERUSA & JUDICIAL WATCH and call without delay your public servants in Washington at 202-224-3121
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