Obomination: Taxpayers Footing the Bill for Obama’s Campaigning
It wasn’t a State of Union, so what
was the President doing at the Capitol? Last
night, Obama delivered a speech in the U.S. Capitol with the House chamber as
the backdrop. Grover Norquist of
Americans for Tax Reform has demanded
that he reimburse taxpayers for use of the Congressional building for a
political speech. The president’s use of
taxpayer-funded resources for multiple political efforts is raising concerns
about whether such behavior is ethical.
Last week, Obama launched a petition
initiative called “We the People” which opens the White House website to
petition drives. FreedomWorks president
Matt Kibbe said,
“It sure looks suspicious… It looks like lobbying and it looks utterly
inappropriate.” In addition, the Republican
National Committee spokesperson Kirsten Kukowski said,
“The president is clearly in campaign mode from his fundraisers to his campaign
bus tour, and now more campaign tactics are coming out from the official White
House… This shouldn’t come as any surprise to Americans who have come to see
him as the ultimate Campaigner-in-Chief.”
The
petition drive, which has been widely reported by the media as an effort to
change White House policy, is actually a way for the White House to just
promote the same old agenda while appearing to listen to the American
people. NBC’s Chuck Todd asked if the
administration would earnestly discuss abolishing the Environmental Protection
Agency if the idea amassed 5,000 supporters. White House communications
director Dan Pfeiffer responded,
"If there are ideas that are ones that we fundamentally disagree with or
are bad ideas and enough people come forward, we’ll respond to why we disagree
with that idea and look for a way to work together on other ideas." In other words, Pfeiffer has confirmed that
“We the People” is just a political maneuver.
This is
not the only time Obama’s actions have generated criticism because taxpayers
are footing the bill. The White House coordinated
a multimillion dollar taxpayer-funded campaign to use search engines to drive
web traffic to a government website promoting Obamacare. Then, there was Obama’s bus
tour through swing states which are integral to winning the upcoming
election.
Obama
should stop campaigning on the taxpayer’s dime and actually do his job as the 44th
President.