Posted on 03/10/2010 8:31:13 PM PST by NormsRevenge
ST LOUIS, Missouri (AFP) – Many Americans have lost faith in their government, US President Barack Obama admitted Wednesday, tackling a pervasive sentiment hobbling his hopes for enacting sweeping reform.
American suspicion of government was deepening, he said in a speech from the heartland state of Missouri, where he pushed his endangered health reform drive that has been branded by Republicans as a government takeover.
"People have lost faith in government -- they had lost faith in government before I ran (for president), and it has been getting worse," Obama said at a rally in St. Louis.
He quoted his political hero, US Civil War-era president Abraham Lincoln, as saying that the role of government was to do what needed to be done but could not be done by citizens themselves without help.
"That pretty much sums up my attitude," Obama said.
The president used the trip to roll out a plan to crack down on waste and fraud in federal health programs for the poor and senior citizens as well as other government spending, which he said amounted to billions of dollars per year.
"I don't accept business as usual... and the American people don't accept it either," Obama said, adding the plan would help cut massive long-term deficits casting a shadow over economic recovery hopes.
In many ways, Obama's entire political program represents a bid to show that government can work, despite inbred US skepticism about federal power and Republican claims that he wants to orchestrate a takeover of much of American life.
Obama has embarked on a fierce week-long campaign to secure crucial votes in Congress on his health care plan before he leaves on a trip to Indonesia and Australia on March 18.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
US President Barack Obama speaks about healthcare insurance reform at St. Charles High School in St. Charles, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Obama joked on Wednesday that half of the 40,000 letters that pour into the White House each day brand him an "idiot. "(AFP/Saul Loeb)
I can only imagine what the other half calls him.
Dittos NSS!
There is a point where the American people decide that the government is the problem, and not the solution to the problem. It has happened twice in our history. The third time might pay for all, and it won't be pretty...
5.56mm
Lincoln said, "done by citizens." Obama wants to ensure that gov't "does to citizens." (Not that I place much trust in Obama actually quoting Lincoln correctly. Nor do I believe for a single second that Lincoln is his political hero.
What? The purple lips and warty thing as well as the ears are perfect!
Oh... you meant that whole ideology thing.
U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks on health insurance reform at St. Charles High School in St. Louis, Missouri, March 10, 2010. REUTERS/Jim Young (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS HEALTH)
“Faith” is an appropriate choice of words.
Statism is the secular religion of the Left. The state is to have power over, and control, the populace, and the proper response of the populace, according to the Left, is to have reverence or “faith” in the state.
It’s been variations on the same theme since Rousseau.
In reality of course, statism is a jackboot stomping on a human face, forever.
Commonsense at some point tells you that a “going concern” that has to borrow 2/3rds of its cash flow, as the Feds did in February, is a dead duck. In fact the Federal Debt bubble is a gross measure of the overall irrelevance of US Fed Gov’mt..as well as that of many other centralized socialist states, to the world.
My faith is in the Creator, not government and certainly not in the sham American, illegal alien known as Barack Obama.
The fact that Americans have lost faith in big government, I hope, will be Obama’s and Pelosi’s best contribution to the USA.
to add to the fuel load, the latest numbers on monthly deficit have us hitting the largest ever .. 220 billion..
combined with the spending at astronomical rates,, Is it any wonder folks are agitated?
Obama’s entire political program represents a bid to show that government can work, despite inbred US skepticism about federal power...
Our very ideals of government WARN us to be skeptical.
History WARNS us to be skeptical of over weaning government.
Then we have democrats whose only goal is more government,
we are right to be skeptical and to make our feelings
known to government. If government ignores us then we
have the right, the obligation to replace it with a
government that will listen and BE a government of
the people.
These socialists want that confrontation and they are
going to get it if they keep on. They want it thinking
that they will remain in control. Not going to happen.
Yeah....really....we’re trying to figure out where to put a pot full of retirement roll over money......
Never had “faith” in the damn government for anything to start with. Everything they do pisses me off.
Sometimes I think they dream of martial law.
Don’t hold back. ;-)
(I feel the same.)
I never heard Abraham Lincoln say that!
Americans have lost faith in government of Obama
L O L !
Obama says they had lost faith in government before he got there. The creep is just blaming Bush. Again. He can’t think of anything else to do.
I wonder what the Democratic pols who have been around for a while say about this pitiful moron when no one can hear them.
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