The speed of Internet publishing allows for real-time fact checking of political debates and speeches, but for tonight’s State of the Union, let me take it one step further: A Pre-Emptive Fact Check on Obama.
The following are the misleading statements about special interests that, based on other recent claims from him, I expect Obama to make during tonight’s address, followed by facts that rebut them.
We stopped the revolving door between government and corporate lobbying. Obama trotted this one out last Saturday, and it wasn’t true then. The revolving door is still spinning. At least one political hire (he was also a regional bigwig on Obama’s campaign) has left the Obama administration for K Street. Obama’s administration includes dozens of former lobbyists, most notably: Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, a former Raytheon lobbyist; and Treasury Department Chief of Staff Mark Patterson, a former Goldman lobbyist. Also, former H&R Block CEO Mark Ernst came to the IRS where he was “co-leader” in writing new regulations for tax preparers–regulations that H&R Block endorsed, and that will profit H&R Block.
Special interests, worried about their profits, funded a dishonest campaign against health-care reform. This favorite Obama claim has a sliver of truth: The health insurance industry successfully lobbied to kill Obama’s proposed “public option” and to insert the individual mandate; they also had some objections to the Senate bill.
But the health-sector industry with the highest profit margins and the most money spent on lobbying is pharmaceuticals. That industry cut a special backroom deal with Obama’s White House, pledged $150 million in support of reform, went to the mat to save health-care “reform’s” 60th vote Martha Coakley, and stood to profit handsomely from the bill.
In my first year, we stood up to tobacco lobby and passed the toughest tobacco regulations ever. Obama used this one when he signed the bill. The problem: Philip Morris, which controls a majority of the U.S. cigarette industry and comprises a majority of the tobacco lobby, suppported the bill wholeheartedly, and reportedly helped write it.
There will be plenty more to check, probably claims about Wall Street or about how Big Business will call the shots in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling, but I’ll address those when they arise.
