Good Morning Blogmocracy Netizens!
We really dodged a bullet in last night’s State of the Union Speech. Obama, who normally gives great 3rd world style speeches, fell flat last night. He really did seem out of it and possibly on medication. He contradicted himself on many occasions. He would call for cuts in spending on one hand and then propose new spending with the other. He did not explain how increasing spending, which he called investment, would allow savings. Obama implied that government central planning would lead to prosperity. This was tried in other places and has failed miserably.
WASHINGTON – The ledger did not appear to be adding up Tuesday night when President Barack Obama urged more spending on one hand and a spending freeze on the other.
Obama spoke ambitiously of putting money into roads, research, education, efficient cars, high-speed rail and other initiatives in his State of the Union speech. He pointed to the transportation and construction projects of the last two years and proposed “we redouble these efforts.” He coupled this with a call to “freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years.”
But Obama offered far more examples of where he would spend than where he would cut, and some of the areas he identified for savings are not certain to yield much if anything.
Read the rest: Obama and his imbalanced ledger
Barack Hussein Obama is not serious in getting the deficit under control. It’s time for the Republicans to call his bluff and propose real budget cuts, as well as tax and regulatory reform. Unless this is done American will continue to economically stagnate. His ideas of central planning have been proven to fail throughout history. You don’t micromanage economic prosperity. You remove a hindrance on capital formation.
What is every one’s take on his speech?
Update: Jonah Goldberg’s conclusion of the speech is the one I had. Obama is over confident because of the GOP’s surrender in the lame duck session and his rising poll numbers. He once again believes he has a mandate to push Progressive policies and is acting like November 2nd never happened.
I haven’t been poisoned by any of the post-punditry because I watched it all on the web. But I was truly surprised by how lackluster and clichéd Obama’s speech was. My suspicion is that because he had a good month or so (START, tax compromise, Tucson speech, uptick in polls) he thinks he can go back to his comfortable talking points: Investment, Sputnik moment, green energy, high speed rail, etc. One sign of that: he was, I believe, a full ten minutes shorter than last year’s SOTU but it felt twice as long.
It’s not as if this was a speech Obama would give if the Shellacking never happened, but it’s close.
Obama botched an opportunity to solidify his case for re-election. The Republicans have been given another opportunity to politically destroy his Presidency. The question is will they be smart enough to capitalize on Obama’s blunder?
Tags: SOTU, State of the Union speech
