On February 12th President Barack Obama flew to East Peoria, Illinois, headquarters of Caterpillar, Inc., the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment. At the press conference President Obama claimed, for the second day in a row, that thanks to his $787 billion stimulus package Caterpillar CEO James Owens planned on rehiring 20,000 recently laid-off employees. But then reporters asked Owens if Obama’s claims were true. Owens replied:
I think, realistically, no. The honest reality is we’re probably going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again.
Not only has Caterpillar not rehired as Obama promised, they have since been forced to lay off even more workers. Fast forward to this Monday when the Obama administration hosted a press conference at the White House this time trying to show that the health care industry supports his health care plan. Obama claimed:
These groups are voluntarily coming together to make an unprecedented commitment. Over the next 10 years, from 2010 to 2019, they are pledging to cut the rate of growth of national health care spending by 1.5 percentage points each year — an amount that’s equal to over $2 trillion.
But now we find out:
In a conference call Thursday, President Richard Umbdenstock told 230 member organizations that the agreement had been misrepresented. The groups, he said, had agreed to gradually ramp up to the 1.5 percentage-point target over 10 years – not to reduce spending by that much in each of the 10 years.
“There has been a tremendous amount of confusion and frankly a lot of political spin,” Umbdenstock said on the call. “And I want to assure you that the American Hospital Association is at the table and a responsible part of this, but that we’ve been very clear on what we have committed to.”
And the New York Times reports:
In the bulletin, Richard J. Pollack, the executive vice president of the hospital association, said: “The A.H.A. did not commit to support the ‘Obama health plan’ or budget. No such reform plan exists at this time.”
The lesson: whenever President Barack Obama claims someone supports his policies, don’t believe him.