Over-Promiser In Chief

One of the first things you learn in dealing with other people is that over-promising is a horrible idea. Humans judge value based on expectation versus reality. If you are promised five dollars and you get five dollars, then you see yourself as having been treated fairly and you are satisfied. If you get ten dollars, then you are very happy. If you get less than five dollars, then you’ve been cheated. Obama hasn’t learned this lesson. Indeed, he has a history of promising way more than he can deliver, and he never seems to learn from his mistakes.

Obama has a history of over-promising. You might recall such laughers as “95% of Americans will see their taxes cut.” Uh huh. That didn’t happen. Indeed, sixty percent are seeing their taxes go up. He would close Gitmo by the end of his first year, change our relationship with China, stop Iran’s nuclear program, stop global warming, bring us together racially, and part the seas. Remember how none of that happened?

What made each of these instances all the stranger was that he could have promised something lesser and arguably kept his promises. But he felt the need to make the BIG PROMISE each time. He wouldn’t just “fix” something, he would “fix for all time.” This almost makes him a pathological over-promiser.

But these were campaign promises and people don’t really expect those to be kept right? Actually, they do. But let’s leave that aside for today, because his pattern continued after he took office.

Do you recall the stimulus? The majority of Americans were prepared to accept the need for a stimulus package, so selling it should have been easy. But Obama strangely felt that he needed to way over-sell it. So he promised that it would create millions of jobs. It didn’t. Indeed, it couldn’t. But he didn’t admit that, even after it became obvious that his promise had been false. Instead, he reformulated his promise as “save or create” and then he doubled down on his overpromises. Hang tight, millions of jobs coming up any moment. Of course, they didn’t come. So he scrambled to come up with jobs, which became a national joke when people started playing “spot the fake job in the fake district.” Even the media ultimately admitted that this turned into a disaster for the administration.

The recession ended in March. . . no May. . . no July. . . no November. We would have positive job growth in August. . . no November. . . no December. . . no March. . . no April.

So what did he learn? Nothing. When it became obvious that Copenhagen would produce nothing but hot air, Obama sprang into action and promised to rescue the conference and save the world from global warming. That didn’t happen. Instead, he ended up cutting some non-deal deal. When his environmentalist supporters turned on him because of his broken promises, he tried to deflect that by promising that he would soon push through cap and trade and thereby save the world. That didn’t happen either. So once again, his way-over-the-top promises came crashing down.

He had a deal to get sanctions on Iran, even China agreed!. . . would agree. . . might agree. . . is considering. . . might not stand in the way of. Oh, and now Brazil is backing out as well. At least the Russians agreed not to keep building Iran a nuclear reactor.

But he's learning to be more careful with his promises, right? No. Instead, he set about creating a series of elaborate over-promises with health care. He didn’t promise that he would extend coverage to some poor Americans, that he would cut a few costs, or that he would improve the quality of care. No. That wouldn’t be grandiose enough. Instead, he promised “universal care.” He promised he would cut costs so much that it would save the country, the treasury, the budget, etc. etc. He promised that medicine would be cheaper and better and we could all keep our current plans. He promised doctors more money under Medicare. And he promised that all of this would happen the minute they passed the bill.

So they passed the bill. And nothing happened, and soon people started questioning his promises. So he doubled down. He even sent Axelrod out to lie about the start date of all the benefits, assuring us that it was just a Republican “myth” that most of the benefits wouldn’t kick in for years.

But these lies are easily disproved. And within a week, after his “bounce” had faded and with public anger growing, the media began to question the bill. Indeed, in the past week, the media has discovered that: (1) Medical costs will go up for all Americans. (2) The doctor’s fix is stalled in Congress -- and it will blow Obama’s deficit promise out of the water when it finally does pass. (3) Most of the benefits don’t take effect until 2014 or later, no matter what Axelrod promised. (4) Companies are dropping their plans, despite Obama’s assurances. (5) Doctors are dropping out of Medicare at a record rate. (6) This “universal coverage” is neither universal, nor coverage, as 22 million Americans are expected to pay fines rather than buy coverage.

So how does Obama respond? “Hey, it’s only been a week, some of this stuff won’t happen for years.” Funny, that’s not what he promised.

What’s interesting to me about all of this is that Obama has expended virtually no effort to do the things he wants to do the right way in the first place. Instead, he just takes whatever is available and he sells it with a series of grandiose and obviously false promises. He is the car salesman trying to pass off the 1984 Yugo as the 2010 Rolls Royce.

In all honesty, this makes little sense. The public was willing to buy much of what he wanted to sell. But somehow that wasn’t good enough for him: he wanted to dazzle them. You could call it inexperience, except that he never seems to learn from his mistakes. So it seems more to be a personality defect than an experience gap. Indeed, I suspect it's ego, he wants to be the savior that everyone told him he was.

In any event, by trying to be a rock star and dazzle the public rather than dealing with the public fairly, Obama has discredited himself. He's converted himself from the principled politician who was going to do some unpleasant things that he felt had to be done into President False-Promise whose programs can’t be trusted.

Not smart.