McConnell criticizes Obama on energy, health care and spending

By RONNIE ELLIS
CNHI News Service

FRANKFORT May 28, 2009 12:08 pm

— Sen. Mitch McConnell made the rounds in Laurel, Whitley and Bell counties Wednesday, giving President Barack Obama his props on some foreign policy issues while criticizing his domestic agenda.
And as he has throughout the continuing drama swirling around the political future of Kentucky’s other Republican Senator Jim Bunning, McConnell steadfastly declined to comment except to say the race “is still unfolding.”
McConnell began the day in London where he presented a check for $3.6 million to fund marijuana eradication efforts and participated in the dedication the second phase of constructing the Kentucky National Guard Joint Readiness Center in London. In Corbin he told the local Chamber of Commerce gathering that he likes Obama who he finds “a smart, capable individual” who he lauded for policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But he criticized Obama’s intention to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp as well as his domestic policies on energy, health care and the budget. Using charts to illustrate, McConnell said Obama’s domestic spending agenda will double the national debt in five years and triple it in 10. Obama has said it’s necessary to spend money to stimulate the economy.
McConnell said the current level of spending will produce “unsustainable debt for our children and grandchildren to deal with,” and said Obama will accumulate more debt in eight years than all the presidents preceding him.
“There’s no way to spend your way out of this debt,” McConnell said. “I think we have gone on an unnecessary spending spree.”
Later, McConnell conceded Obama’s predecessor, Republican George W. Bush, also exceeded the combined debt levels of previous administrations but he said Bush didn’t run up debt as fast as Obama.
He said Obama’s plans to extend health care coverage to all will “put the government between you and your doctor” and lead to rationed care. McConnell said the government instead should allow individuals to deduct health care costs from taxes as corporations can already
The top elected Republican in the country said Obama’s plan to implement a “cap and trade” system to lower carbon emissions would “put the clamps on the economy” and offer a one-country solution to a global problem, assuring the crowd that developing economies like India’s and China’s would not participate.
McConnell, who often has said the country’s anti-terrorist policies have resulted in no additional attacks since the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11, said Obama is wrong to set a deadline for closing Guantanamo Bay. He conceded Bush also had plans to close the camp which has been the subject of international criticism because of aggressive interrogation techniques which critics say in some cases constitute torture. But Bush never set a deadline for closing the camp, he said, and the the alternative is to house the prisoners in the U.S.
He called the 250 or so prisoners there “the worst of the worst” who were “put in jail at Guantanamo and that’s where they ought to stay,” earning his biggest applause of the speech.
During a question and answer period at the end of his remarks, retired businessman and former Marine Bob Terrell Sr. said he’d previously opposed keeping Guantanamo open but McConnell’s defense of the camp demonstrated how sticky a problem it might be to close the camp.
Afterward, Terrell, a registered Democrat, said the county must always observe the Geneva Conventions of war in order to ensure protections for U.S. military personnel who might be taken prisoner – “and we should never torture people.” But he conceded McConnell made a strong argument for keeping the facility open.
At both London and Corbin, McConnell was asked who will be the Republican nominee for Bunning’s seat – and each time McConnell declined to be drawn into a public comment on Bunning who has publicly blamed McConnell for for undermining his campaign for a third term. Bunning is viewed as the most vulnerable Republican Senator on the 2010 ballot and McConnell has refused to endorse him but has not publicly said someone else should be the party’s nominee.
“I’m going to support the Republican nominee whoever that is,” McConnell told a local reporter in London. “Right now, it’s kind of unclear who that will be.”
Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.