Obama's Super-Secret Plan

Jeb Bush, the seemingly bright one of the Bush Brothers, is spouting off in interviews and seems to support the notion that President Obama is somehow sneaking up on the American people with his agenda:

Barack Obama would not have gotten elected if he'd let us in on his secret plan prior to the election. He would not have gotten elected if he'd said, "My idea is to create a $1.8 trillion deficit for the next fiscal year. My idea is to spend $750 billion [the president's budget estimate puts this figure at $630 billion] over the next ten years on a government-sponsored, government-subsidized health-care policy. My idea is to create a massive cap-and-trade system [based on the idea] that CO2 is [a] pollutant and we need to tax it in a massive way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions."

Uh-huh, except, well, he sorta did say those things. Well, not in one paragraph, and he didn't plan on a "$1.8 trillion deficit," in large part because bailouts and stimulus plans weren't seen as a necessity until after his election.

But on Health Care, he articulated his plan on the website, and this archived page from February of 2008 shows that he would promote a national health care plan to augment the private health insurance market.

As for Co2 regulation, the President made clear in early 2008 that he supported a Cap and Trade system as well:

Cap and Trade: Obama supports implementation of a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by the amount scientists say is necessary: 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Obama's cap-and-trade system will require all pollution credits to be auctioned. A 100 percent auction ensures that all polluters pay for every ton of emissions they release, rather than giving these emission rights away to coal and oil companies. Some of the revenue generated by auctioning allowances will be used to support the development of clean energy, to invest in energy efficiency improvements, and to address transition costs, including helping American workers affected by this economic transition.

So far, sans the stimulus package and bailouts, everything the President has done since taking office was part of his platform in the election. Now, some on the left are upset that he hasn't moved fast enough on parts of his agenda, and you can argue from the right that the President should readjust his agenda given the economic and budgetary constraints caused by the global recession, but he's still doing what he said he was going to do based on the platform that helped get him elected.