Obama O'Reilly Interview

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2011/02/obama-oreilly-interview

President Obama gave a pre-Superbowl interview to Fox News's Bill O'Reilly. Highlights:

Mr. Obama on the risk of the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power in Egypt: "There are a whole bunch of educators and civil society in Egypt that wants to come to the fore as well." Yeah, if we could only put some college professors in charge there like we have a law professor in charge here, it'd work out great.

Mr. Obama on ObamaCare: "What the American people have said is, we want cost controls on health care." I don't recall the American people having said any such thing. The American people may be annoyed that their health care costs keep going up, but it's a big leap from that to government-imposed "cost controls." "Controls" is a big-government word, evoking Nixon's wage and price controls or a "command-and-control" economy.

More of Mr. Obama on ObamaCare: "If you've got health care you like, you can keep it." Not if it's in one of the Medicare Advantage plans that ObamaCare shuts down, or if it was from Aetna, which is getting out of the individual health insurance market in Colorado, or Guardian or Principal, which are getting out of the health insurance business altogether.

Mr. Obama on taxes: "I didn't raise taxes once." Not true. He raised the federal cigarette tax, and his lawyers defending ObamaCare are in court trying to defend the penalty on the uninsured as constitutional on the grounds that it's a tax. He brought back the estate/death tax after it had not been in effect in 2011. And other tax increases attempted by Mr. Obama only failed because of congressional opposition, not for any lack of trying by the president.

by Ira Stoll  |  Feb 7, 2011 at 11:13 am Related Topics:  Education, Health Care, President Obama, Press, Taxes receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list