Predictions are a joke

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced today that in the future President Obama’s nominees for appointments will not be held up in an effort to blackmail the Democrats into accepting some foolish Republican nonsense about abortions, give the Congressional Medal of Freedom to the Koch brothers, declare global warming a hoax, or some other ridiculous garbage. McConnell announced a new era of cooperation with President Obama.

Coincidently House Republicans unfolded their 2016 budget. It includes tax relief for the middle class and an increase in taxes on the most wealthy, including an increase in inheritance taxes. Unlike previous years it doesn’t contain cuts in the food stamp program or health care cuts for seniors or children. The budget recognizes the Affordable Care Act as responsible for cutting costs. They will no longer attempt to repeal the act.

Hold on! April 1 was two weeks ago. It’s too late for April fools jokes. Sorry. Forget every thing you just read. It‘s fiction. The Republicans are still without a heart or soul.

Go back, as President Obama did recently, and take a look at the dire predictions made by the Republicans and the far right before his re-election. They sound like April Fool’s jokes.

For instance: On the floor of the Senate in March 2012. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, predicted that if Obama were re-elected, gasoline prices would be $5.45 a gallon by the start of 2015 and rise 5 cents a gallon for every month Obama was in offices eventually reaching $6.60 a gallon. Newt Gingrich, not to be outdone, predicted gas prices of $10 a gallon if Obama were re-elected. April fool. Fact: The average price per gallon of gas on Jan 1, 2015, was $2.24.

“Not only has President Obama failed to improve the economic story, but — By every measure things are worse in America than when President Obama took office.”-Bill O’Reilly, on Fox, Aug. 6, 2014.

Facts: The economy grew at 4.6 percent in the second quarter and 5 percent in the quarter of 2014. There have been 11.8 million private sector jobs created over 59 straight months. The stock market has nearly doubled, the deficit is falling faster than Bill Cosby’s reputation, and unemployment is down to 5.5 percent. By every measurement imaginable Bill O’Reilly is a joke.

Author Charles Bilderman in his Forbes magazine column wrote that the stock market sell off after Obama’s reelection was no accident and said, “There is no bottom in sight.” He predicted Obama’s policies in his second term would “crash stocks.” Investor Marc Faber predicted a drop of at least 20 percent because Obama doesn’t care about piling up debt.

Facts: The stock market finished at over 18,000 on Dec, 23, 2014, an all time record high. Since Obama’s re-election it has risen a staggering 35 percent and the deficit is plummeting.

In November 2012, Rush Limbaugh predicted that “the country’s economy is going to collapse if Obama is reelected. There is no doubt of this. And it’s gonna be ugly. It’s gonna be gut wrenching, but it will happen.”

Facts: The economy grew in the second and third quarter of 2014 at the fastest rate in 11 years. I’ve already mentioned the stock market’s robust rise, the dramatic drop in unemployment, and the tremendous reduction in the deficit.

Here are several of the most outlandish Republican predictions about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare): Premium costs will skyrocket by as much as 300 percent. Obamacare will actually increase the number of uninsured. Obamacare will destroy the private health insurance industry. Those who sign up for insurance under Obamacare will not pay the premiums.

Facts: The actual increase in premium costs is closer to 6 percent, which is lower than the typical increase before Obamacare. The Republicans were just 294 percent off. Obamacare has not increased the number of uninsured, in spite of Speaker of the House John Boehner’s prediction that “there will be a net loss of people with health insurance.”

Actually more than 10.3 million formerly uninsured now have health insurance. Gallup says the uninsured rate is the lowest since the 1990s. The private health insurance industry has not been destroyed as Republicans predicted. There were 248 more health insurance plans available on the exchange in 2015 than in 2014, a net increase of 25 percent and insurance companies are doing well on the stock exchange. They report about 90 percent of those signing up for insurance under Obamacare are paying their premiums.

Republicans are masters of fiction prediction.

Glen McAdoo, a Fallon resident, can be contacted at glynn@phonewave.net