The President took to the air last night to deliver his State of the Union Address after a day filled with one prediction after another of what this critical speech will contain. Obama is in a very difficult position as he enters his second year in office. The antics of his administration and Congressional Democrats have isolated him from Republicans, moderate Democrats and independents alike; his failure to deliver the most radical portions of his agenda have the far left nearly as angry with Obama as they were with Bush and the hundreds of billions he spent for “economic recovery” have not prevented the loss of an additional three million jobs since the Stimulus Bill was signed into law.
The dramatic losses for Democrats in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts have so far managed to quiet the biggest (the pun is definitely intended) loud mouth in the pro-Obama arsenal, Bob Beckel. Beckel, who was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Carter administration and a vociferous supporter of Obama as well as every bit of this administration’s most radical proposals. There is no government program or tax hike that could be too big for Beckel and even after Corzine’s loss in the New Jersey gubernatorial race, still maintained that this President would go down in history as the greatest President of all time. Well, if current events can shut even Beckel up, what chance does this President have that this speech will reverse his fortunes and restore his plummeting approval ratings?
Many have insisting that the President should step to the right; cutting taxes to stimulate business and begin an earnest assault on runaway Federal spending. Of course the Democratic strategists have already been saying that Obama finally gets it and his announcement that he intends to freeze discretionary spending for the next three years is proof that he is serious about tackling the economy which is one of the clear priorities of the American people. Of course that might have worked a couple of years ago or with another President but I doubt that will mean much now. Other Presidents didn’t have the additional baggage of not only breaking this many campaign promises but he has also been caught on a number of occasions just plain lying to the American people .
As they occurred, C Span reported on the closed door meetings that Obama had with Congressional Democrats, Senate Democrats, Heath Insurance and Pharmaceutical industry leaders as well as labor Unions, in his attempts to broker support for healthcare reform and yet he (Obama) appeared on network television this week and said that he held no closed door meetings on healthcare and made no closed door deals to buy support for healthcare. Really?
Does he really believe that if he says that often enough and loud enough that we will suddenly forget what we saw with our own eyes? The spending freeze that he is planning is yet another lie. When he announced his plan to freeze Federal discretionary spending he left out a few little details. The discretionary spending the President refers to only represents a very small portion of the current Federal budget, roughly 17%, and I’m sure it just slipped his mind but he also forgot to mention that he had already raised discretionary spending 24% just in the past year. His freeze will do nothing more than lock in an average 8% annual increase over the spending levels of the Bush administration; spending levels that Candidate Obama called reckless.
To dispel any rumors; the President said little, if anything. What I thought was amusing was that Harry Reid was actually caught yawning as the President announced that two million jobs were saved and taxes were cut for 95% of all Americans. Well of course you would have to ignore that three million jobs were lost since the Stimulus Bill was signed into law or that seven million jobs were lost since Obama took office for that to even be a half truth. But let’s not let petty little numbers stand in the way of progress. Oh by the way…..shifting the tax burden from the individuals to businesses does not yield a tax cut. Business NEVER pays taxes. Those taxes are always passed on to the consumer as a rise in the price of goods or services; in essence, a middle class tax increase.
Oh but fear not. Obama promised, well he suggested, a small business tax break to incentivize hiring but like so many of his promises, that is something only Congress can do. Congressional Republicans would agree, at least most of them, but Democrats would have to surrender their chief guarantor of reelection…..class warfare. How could any self-respecting, OK….I take that back…how could any Democrat hope to gain reelection if they took the side of those evil business owners? After all, they have railed against them for years!
I empathize with the President. It must be exceedingly hard to stand before all of Congress, not to mention the nation, and lie your butt off but then again, he wanted the job. Perhaps he thought it would be like Chicago where animated speech mattered more than content. Perhaps he thought it was more like it was a dozen years ago and no one would pay attention. But this is 2010 and we are all watching the shell game (for a change).
The fact is, Obama said nothing I didn’t expect. Even his call for exploiting America’s energy resources is a red herring. He has already appointed the radical left to positions of power within the EPA that will trump any chance that we will develop nuclear, coal or oil powered plants within the United States. That is apparently the domain of developing nations and he cannot develop those resources and keep his promise to the United Nations.
The most important thing in his speech took place nearly at the end. Despite the failing economy and the continuing decline in employment, our President still thinks that driving the nation into the budget-busting abyss of the current healthcare reform legislation and an equally devastating climate agreement is something he can talk us into supporting. I will give him a little credit though. He all but admitted that this was an effort that has been underway for one-hundred years. Not climate change….healthcare. Theodore Roosevelt started that. Fortunately he failed, and everyone who has tried it since has thankfully failed as well.
It is apparent that the President still doesn’t get it and probably never will. He called for another jobs bill, in essence a third stimulus bill, which only proves he is a hopeless ideologue. It seems that everyone but the Federal government knows that government does not create jobs, the private sector does and the private sector can not flourish as long as government is picking their pockets. The job prospects in this country will not improve as long as business remains skeptical about what their tax liability or energy costs will be but this President still wants healthcare reform and cap and trade. He has empowered the EPA to unilaterally curtail carbon emissions with total disregard to the economic damage that will cause if the Congress rejects the climate bill. He wants to invest in high speed rail even though 10% of this nation no longer needs a ride to work. He wants to accelerate green initiatives claiming this is the wave of the future but where is our manufacturing base? Those “green” jobs will be located in countries that will not have the added burden of skyrocketing energy costs because of the government regulation of greenhouse gasses; regulations imposed because of corrupt climate studies and United Nations interference.
Obama said in a recent interview that he would rather be a really good one term President than a mediocre two term President. I don’t think he looked behind door number three. If this President and his co-conspirators on Capitol Hill do not halt this crazy march towards socialism; if they keep giving speeches instead of listening to the American people; if they keep huddling behind closed doors, the current trend will continue through the November election and Barack Obama will be a lame duck in the second year of his first term. He can call the Republicans the party of no if that suits him. What he fails to see is that at the request of the American people, the Republicans will be the party of no more!
Paul
The dramatic losses for Democrats in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts have so far managed to quiet the biggest (the pun is definitely intended) loud mouth in the pro-Obama arsenal, Bob Beckel. Beckel, who was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Carter administration and a vociferous supporter of Obama as well as every bit of this administration’s most radical proposals. There is no government program or tax hike that could be too big for Beckel and even after Corzine’s loss in the New Jersey gubernatorial race, still maintained that this President would go down in history as the greatest President of all time. Well, if current events can shut even Beckel up, what chance does this President have that this speech will reverse his fortunes and restore his plummeting approval ratings?
Many have insisting that the President should step to the right; cutting taxes to stimulate business and begin an earnest assault on runaway Federal spending. Of course the Democratic strategists have already been saying that Obama finally gets it and his announcement that he intends to freeze discretionary spending for the next three years is proof that he is serious about tackling the economy which is one of the clear priorities of the American people. Of course that might have worked a couple of years ago or with another President but I doubt that will mean much now. Other Presidents didn’t have the additional baggage of not only breaking this many campaign promises but he has also been caught on a number of occasions just plain lying to the American people .
As they occurred, C Span reported on the closed door meetings that Obama had with Congressional Democrats, Senate Democrats, Heath Insurance and Pharmaceutical industry leaders as well as labor Unions, in his attempts to broker support for healthcare reform and yet he (Obama) appeared on network television this week and said that he held no closed door meetings on healthcare and made no closed door deals to buy support for healthcare. Really?
Does he really believe that if he says that often enough and loud enough that we will suddenly forget what we saw with our own eyes? The spending freeze that he is planning is yet another lie. When he announced his plan to freeze Federal discretionary spending he left out a few little details. The discretionary spending the President refers to only represents a very small portion of the current Federal budget, roughly 17%, and I’m sure it just slipped his mind but he also forgot to mention that he had already raised discretionary spending 24% just in the past year. His freeze will do nothing more than lock in an average 8% annual increase over the spending levels of the Bush administration; spending levels that Candidate Obama called reckless.
To dispel any rumors; the President said little, if anything. What I thought was amusing was that Harry Reid was actually caught yawning as the President announced that two million jobs were saved and taxes were cut for 95% of all Americans. Well of course you would have to ignore that three million jobs were lost since the Stimulus Bill was signed into law or that seven million jobs were lost since Obama took office for that to even be a half truth. But let’s not let petty little numbers stand in the way of progress. Oh by the way…..shifting the tax burden from the individuals to businesses does not yield a tax cut. Business NEVER pays taxes. Those taxes are always passed on to the consumer as a rise in the price of goods or services; in essence, a middle class tax increase.
Oh but fear not. Obama promised, well he suggested, a small business tax break to incentivize hiring but like so many of his promises, that is something only Congress can do. Congressional Republicans would agree, at least most of them, but Democrats would have to surrender their chief guarantor of reelection…..class warfare. How could any self-respecting, OK….I take that back…how could any Democrat hope to gain reelection if they took the side of those evil business owners? After all, they have railed against them for years!
I empathize with the President. It must be exceedingly hard to stand before all of Congress, not to mention the nation, and lie your butt off but then again, he wanted the job. Perhaps he thought it would be like Chicago where animated speech mattered more than content. Perhaps he thought it was more like it was a dozen years ago and no one would pay attention. But this is 2010 and we are all watching the shell game (for a change).
The fact is, Obama said nothing I didn’t expect. Even his call for exploiting America’s energy resources is a red herring. He has already appointed the radical left to positions of power within the EPA that will trump any chance that we will develop nuclear, coal or oil powered plants within the United States. That is apparently the domain of developing nations and he cannot develop those resources and keep his promise to the United Nations.
The most important thing in his speech took place nearly at the end. Despite the failing economy and the continuing decline in employment, our President still thinks that driving the nation into the budget-busting abyss of the current healthcare reform legislation and an equally devastating climate agreement is something he can talk us into supporting. I will give him a little credit though. He all but admitted that this was an effort that has been underway for one-hundred years. Not climate change….healthcare. Theodore Roosevelt started that. Fortunately he failed, and everyone who has tried it since has thankfully failed as well.
It is apparent that the President still doesn’t get it and probably never will. He called for another jobs bill, in essence a third stimulus bill, which only proves he is a hopeless ideologue. It seems that everyone but the Federal government knows that government does not create jobs, the private sector does and the private sector can not flourish as long as government is picking their pockets. The job prospects in this country will not improve as long as business remains skeptical about what their tax liability or energy costs will be but this President still wants healthcare reform and cap and trade. He has empowered the EPA to unilaterally curtail carbon emissions with total disregard to the economic damage that will cause if the Congress rejects the climate bill. He wants to invest in high speed rail even though 10% of this nation no longer needs a ride to work. He wants to accelerate green initiatives claiming this is the wave of the future but where is our manufacturing base? Those “green” jobs will be located in countries that will not have the added burden of skyrocketing energy costs because of the government regulation of greenhouse gasses; regulations imposed because of corrupt climate studies and United Nations interference.
Obama said in a recent interview that he would rather be a really good one term President than a mediocre two term President. I don’t think he looked behind door number three. If this President and his co-conspirators on Capitol Hill do not halt this crazy march towards socialism; if they keep giving speeches instead of listening to the American people; if they keep huddling behind closed doors, the current trend will continue through the November election and Barack Obama will be a lame duck in the second year of his first term. He can call the Republicans the party of no if that suits him. What he fails to see is that at the request of the American people, the Republicans will be the party of no more!
Paul
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