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CONGRATULATIONS TO BARACK OBAMA

We wish you all the success in coming years.  We will be reporting on the triumphs and failures of your Administration in the genuine hope that you are able to deliver on your promise to strengthen our nation and improve the lives of every American.

Lee Troxler

Obama's "Dignity" Ad Isn't Dignified (Or Truthful)

Source: HUMAN EVENTS

Although he’s not yet in the league of Al “I invented the Internet” Gore, Barack Obama’s new campaign ad, “Dignity” contains several exaggerations about his role in getting tax and welfare reform legislation passed during his tenure as a State Senator in Illinois. His push to expand “health care for kids” also shows something most of us already assumed, namely that his goal to socialize health care and spend taxpayer money trumps any desire for fiscal responsibility.

The thirty second ad, which can be seen HERE, spends 10 seconds of black-and-white footage, describing how Obama “worked his way through college and Harvard Law, turned down big money offers…”

Apparently not enough of them for Obama to fail to get a remarkable deal on a $1.65 million home, possibly with the help of now-convicted Tony Rezko. And just after the ad says Obama “turned down big money offers”, the footage cuts to pictures of small row houses discussing how Obama “helped lift neighborhoods stung by job losses.” If he couldn’t actually lift a neighborhood, at least he found a way to lift himself into a better one.

And now the Washington Post reports that in addition to a discount on his house, Obama received a suspiciously good deal on his mortgage, paying a below-average interest rate, no origination fee, and no points at Northern Trust, a bank where he had no prior relationship. The post also notes that "The Obamas have since had as much as $3 million invested through Northern Trust". Ah, the dignity of turning down big money offers.

The ad moves to specific issues, beginning with “he passed a law to move people from welfare to work, slashed the rolls by eighty percent.” But these bills were passed in the Clinton years, before Obama came to the US Senate. And, while in the Illinois legislature, he reportedly said he would have voted against the Clinton welfare reforms. So how is it that he’s claiming credit for them? Maybe those in the Illinois law?

As far as Obama “passing” the law, even the Washington Post recognizes that “Obama sponsored or co-sponsored -- but did not ‘pass’ -- the welfare and tax measures he takes credit for” in this and prior commercials. The welfare reform law at issue here, which was Illinois HB 204 in 1997, did indeed have Obama as a “chief co-sponsor”, a position he took along with four others. But he welfare reform passed in Illinois was in response to the 1996 Welfare Reform Act (officially titled the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996”) which forced states to substantially change their welfare systems.

So where’s the innovation, the courage and the glory? In passing a federally-mandated bill.

Although Obama said during the State Senate’s discussion of the bill that he “probably would not have supported the federal legislation”, it is true that he worked with the chief Republican sponsor of the bill to come to an agreement acceptable to both sides. Overall, Obama was involved in the process of negotiating the final bill, but even he recognized that “there hasn’t been too much political heat around this issue”, and the idea that Obama “passed” the legislation is a substantial exaggeration.

“Dignity” then claims that Obama “passed tax cuts for workers”, referring to a bill, originally Illinois HB3939 in 2000, which created an Earned Income Tax Credit (“EITC”) in Illinois. The bill passed 59-0 in the State Senate on April 14th, 2000. The next day, Obama, along with 20 other State Senators, added his name as a co-sponsor. He was not a chief sponsor: he was a follower.

When Illinois Governor George Ryan signed the bill, which “put about $50 in the pockets of poor workers”, he “credited Illinois Democratic Senate Leader Emil Jones with its passage”. According to the same article, “Jones said he pushed this EITC program during the recent budget negotiations”.

The bill which passed the Illinois Senate established a state EITC rate at 5% of the federal EITC rate. Although Obama voted for the bill in the end, he was a chief sponsor of a failed attempt to implement Illinois’ EITC at 10%, with it increasing to 15% and then 20% within three years.

In other words, Obama went along with but did not sponsor the bill which he now takes credit for “passing” and failed to pass the bill he wanted.

The “Dignity” ad then moves on to Obama’s claim to have passed “health care for kids”. Obama was indeed the chief State Senate sponsor of Public Act 93-0063 which passed on a 42-13 vote in March, 2003, and became law in June, 2003.

According to a Chicago Sun-Times article, “The measure expands KidCare, the state's health insurance program for uninsured children….It also expands FamilyCare, a program providing health insurance to uninsured parents whose children are insured under Medicaid or KidCare…. The bill also makes the KidCare program, set to expire Tuesday, permanent. The measure, sponsored by Rep. Sandra Pihos (R-Glen Ellyn) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Chicago) will cost about $26 million this year, the governor said, adding the state will get $48 million from the federal government for the program.”

There was an interesting discussion (see pages 98-100 of PDF) between State Senator Obama and State Senator Steven Rauschenberger just before the vote on the bill. Rauschenberger opposed this expansion of government for fiscal reasons: “We’ve got extraordinary financial circumstances in the balance of the ’03 fiscal year. I think we’re now talking maybe in the range of 1.3-billion-dollar meltdown in the fiscal year we’re in. We’re projected by the Governor’s own numbers to be looking at a 3.6-billion-dollar hole…. I think it’s the wrong time to expand eligibility, to make those kind of promises when we don’t have the wherewithal to pay for ‘em.”

Obama’s reaction, which could be a bigger indictment of our entire system than of Obama, is that because of an available federal match on money spent, “we get more bang for the buck…it doesn’t make sense for us to leave this money on the table.” Illinois Governor Rod (“Rezko who?”) Blagojevich agreed with that sentiment: “The beauty of this program is that for every 35 cents the state invests in KidCare and FamilyCare, the federal government has to match the remaining 65 cents on the dollar.” I feel much better about it now, don’t you?

Not surprisingly, when there’s a free lunch, people come to eat. A press release from Blagojevich’s office in August, 2004, noted that “Illinois increased the number of working parents covered by the Illinois Department of Public Aid’s (IDPA) FamilyCare program by an astonishing 227 percent, far outpacing all other states. The report said Illinois was second in the nation from June to December of 2003 in terms of increasing the number of children covered by KidCare, known nationally as the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).”

In case the Nanny State wasn’t growing fast enough, Illinois later removed income requirements for children to participate in these programs. Again, that’s no surprise when the Governor says “To me, health care isn’t a privilege – it’s a right.” Today, FamilyCare covers children of “all Illinois families earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level”, or over $85,000 for a family of four, and the Governor seems proud that “its medical costs will grow by only 7.4% this fiscal year.”

Although Obama wasn’t in the state government when the income requirement was removed, his current positions on health care make it clear that he supports “expanding eligibility” for government programs. In other words, ObamaCare will be nearly identical to HillaryCare.

The one piece of legislation that Obama’s new ad correctly claims he had an important role in passing was the most expensive. This expansion of “health care for kids”, which the state now proposes to fund by a new tax on employers who don’t spend more than 4% of payroll on health care, will probably not keep socialized medicine from eventually bankrupting Illinois just as Medicare will bankrupt the nation if it is not addressed soon.

Obama’s commercial ends by saying that Obama will “never forget the dignity that comes from work”. I wonder just how much dignity there is in working under a President who rewards your efforts by raising income taxes, payroll taxes, and capital gains taxes, requiring a penance from us for having more “dignity” than others. No, Obama doesn’t mean there’s pride in work. He means there’s a gold mine for him in the work of others.

Dignity. Right.

Obama Got Discount on Home Loan

Source: WASHINGTON POST

Campaign Defends Lower Rate as Lender Competition for Business

Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois.

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a "super super jumbo." Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.

Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama's rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said the rate was adjusted to account for a competing offer from another lender and other factors. "The Obamas have since had as much as $3 million invested through Northern Trust," he said in a statement.

Modest adjustments in mortgage rates are common among financial institutions as they compete for business or develop relationships with wealthy families. But amid a national housing crisis, news of discounts offered to Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the banking committee, and Kent Conrad (D-N.D) by another lender, Countrywide Financial, has brought new scrutiny to the practice and has resulted in a preliminary Senate ethics committee inquiry into the Dodd and Conrad loans.

Within Obama's presidential campaign organization, former Fannie Mae chief executive James A. Johnson resigned abruptly as head of the vice presidential search committee after his favorable Countrywide loan became public.

Driving the recent debate is concern that public officials, knowingly or unknowingly, may receive special treatment from lenders and that the discounts could constitute gifts that are prohibited by law.

"The real question is: Were congressmen getting unique treatment that others weren't getting?" associate law professor Adam J. Levitin, a credit specialist at Georgetown University Law Center, said about the Countrywide loans. "Do they do business like that for people who are not congressmen? If they don't, that's a problem."

Under financial disclosure rules, members of Congress are not obliged to disclose debts owed to financial institutions for personal residences. Names of lenders and rates paid on mortgages sometimes can be determined by scrutinizing property transaction records. In March, in response to media questions, Obama posted on his campaign Web site records related to his house purchase.

Last week, during debate on a bill to help homeowners caught in the foreclosure crisis, some members of the Senate ethics committee proposed an amendment to require that lawmakers disclose their mortgage lenders and loan terms in annual financial forms starting next year.

In Obama's case, he received a lower rate than the average offered at the time in Chicago for similarly structured jumbo loans. He secured his final mortgage commitment on June 8, 2005, and during that week, rates on similar loans for which information is available averaged 5.93 percent, according to HSH Associates, which surveys lenders. Another survey firm, Bankrate.com, placed the average at 6 percent.

"It's certainly safe to say that this borrower did better than average," said Keith Gumbinger, an HSH vice president, noting that consumer rates vary widely. "It's a good deal."

The Obama campaign called the rate "consistent with Northern Trust policies, and it reflected the base rate set for that period discounted to address the competition for the account and other opportunities, such as personal financial services, that the relationship would bring to Northern Trust."

When the Obamas secured the loan, their income had risen dramatically. Obama assumed his Senate seat in January 2005, with an annual salary of $162,100. That same month, Random House agreed to reissue an Obama memoir, for which it originally paid $40,000, as part of a $2.27 million deal that included two future nonfiction books and a children's book.

Around the same time, the University of Chicago Hospitals promoted Michelle Obama to a vice president and more than doubled her pay, to $317,000.

The couple wanted to step up from their $415,000 condo. They chose a house with six bedrooms, four fireplaces, a four-car garage and 5 1/2 baths, including a double steam shower and a marble powder room. It had a wine cellar, a music room, a library, a solarium, beveled glass doors and a granite-floored kitchen.

The Obamas had no prior relationship with Northern Trust when they applied for the loan. They received an oral commitment on Feb. 4, 2005, and locked in the rate of 5.625 percent, the campaign said. On that date, HSH data show, the average rate in Chicago for a 30-year fixed-rate jumbo loan with no points was about 5.94 percent.

Jumbo loans are for amounts up to $650,000, but the Obamas' $1.32 million loan was so large that few comparables are available. Mortgage specialists say that many high-end buyers pay cash.

Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, has no mortgages on properties he owns with his wife, Cindy, who is a multimillionaire.

Unlike Countrywide, where leaked internal e-mails documented a special discount program for friends of chief executive Angelo Mozilo, Northern Trust says it has no formal program to provide discounts to public officials. Loan officers may consider a borrower's occupation when establishing an interest rate, the bank said.

"A person's occupation and salary are two factors; I would expect those are two things we would take into consideration," said Northern Trust Vice President John O'Connell. "That would apply to anyone seeking to get a mortgage at Northern Trust." He added that the rates offered to Obama were "consistent with internal Northern Trust rates at that time."

"The bottom line is, this was a business proposition for us," he said. "Our business model is to service and pursue successful individuals, families and institutions."

O'Connell referred additional questions to the campaign.

Since 1990, Northern Trust employees have donated more than $739,000 to federal campaigns, including $71,000 to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Obama's house purchase has been a source of controversy. In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that on the day of the closing, the wife of Obama's longtime friend and fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko closed on an adjoining lot that had been the estate's side yard.

The Obamas bought the house for $300,000 less than the asking price of $1.95 million, while Rezko's wife, Rita, bought the neighboring lot for the full asking price of $625,000. Rita Rezko later sold a portion of the undeveloped lot to the Obamas, enlarging the senator's yard.

Tony Rezko already had been linked to a grand jury investigation involving public corruption. Last month, he was convicted of 16 counts in an influence-peddling scheme that reached the highest levels of Illinois state government.