Still trying to sell his Obamacare plan in Charlotte, N.C., last week, President Obama responded to a simple question with a not-so-simple answer.<\/p>\n
Is it, a woman named Doris wanted to know, a \u201cwise decision to add more taxes to us with the healthcare\u201d package? \u201cWe are over-taxed as it is,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
More than 17 minutes and 2,500 words later, Obama still hadn\u2019t addressed her question.<\/p>\n
According to The Washington Post<\/em>, Obama \u201cwandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, \u2018F-Map\u2019). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as \u2018FICA\u2019).\u201d<\/p>\n He continued making points after he ticked off three points after saying he had to make one more point\u2014seven points in all.<\/p>\n Finally, even Obama seemed to realize he had gone on too long. As The Post<\/em> explains, he apologized\u2014in keeping with the spirit of the moment, not once but twice.<\/p>\n \u201cBoy that was a long answer. I\u2019m sorry. I hope I answered your question,\u201d Obama said.<\/p>\n While he didn\u2019t answer Doris, his non-answer soliloquy was answer enough. Besides, he answered it during the campaign when he responded to a similar question from Joe \u201cThe Plumber\u201d Wurzelbacher. \u201cI think when you spread the wealth around, it\u2019s good for everybody,\u201d Obama said.<\/p>\n Spreading the wealth around is his goal, but he\u2019s not about to say it that plainly anymore. Besides, he still believes that the majority of Americans oppose Obamacare because they don\u2019t understand it. So he\u2019s going to talk it up and talk it up.<\/p>\n \u201cHere comes the Orator! with his Flood of Words, and his Drop of Reason,\u201d Benjamin Franklin wrote in Poor Richard\u2019s Almanac<\/em> in 1735.<\/p>\n It looks like old Ben spotted Obama not just a mile away, but about 275 years away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Still trying to sell his Obamacare plan in Charlotte, N.C., last week, President Obama responded to a simple question with a not-so-simple answer. Is it, a woman named Doris wanted to know, a \u201cwise decision to add more taxes to us with the healthcare\u201d package? \u201cWe are over-taxed as it is,\u201d she said. More than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5330,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-520036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5330"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}