Excerpts of President Obama’s acceptance speech and the bullet points are flying around the Internet. According to Politico, he’s going to be promising the following:
* Create one million new manufacturing jobs by the end of 2016 and double exports by the end of 2014.
* Cut net oil imports in half by 2020 and support 600,000 natural gas jobs by the end of the decade.
* Cut the growth of college tuition in half over the next 10 years; recruit 100,000 math and science teachers over the next 10 years and train 2 million workers for real jobs at community colleges.
* Invest in the economy with the money we’re no longer spending on war.
* Reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade.
But if a lot of this sounds familiar, it should: he gave some of the same promises in his first acceptance speech in front of those faux Greek columns at Invesco Field in 2008.
In 2008 he also talked about jobs, but he now presides over an economy where unemployment is higher than when he took the oath of office.
In 2008, he said, “In 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.” But in the past four years not only has he failed to make progress toward that goal, he has retarded that effort by bowing to environmental extremists by stopping the building of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada.
On education, in 2008 he made a similar promise. He said, “I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries, and give them more support.”
In 2008, he did not promise a peace dividend but did complain about Iraq’s surplus and implied that the money being spent abroad should be used at home. But bragging about cutting our defense to the bone will leave us even less prepared than we were the last time the country was caught sleeping after thinking it no longer needed to worry about security.
In 2008, he spoke of going through the budget to save money and now he promises to cut it, but he’s recycling promises made throughout his presidency. And this pledge is also accompanied by the same inability to say where he will get the money other than gimmicks.
President Obama is entitled to repeat these vague promises, but after four years it’s clear his idea of moving “forward” is pretty much a faint echo of the same stuff he ran on in 2008. It falls far short of the “hope and change” messianism that first propelled him into office but perhaps he’s decided that rather than to try and fail to recapture that moment, he’s better off playing it safe with recycled campaign fodder.
"Cut net oil imports in half by 2020 and support 600,000 natural gas jobs by the end of the decade." n n??? n nIs he also planning on suspending presidential term-limits so he is still running the country in 2020?
I know I have to continue to listen to this speech but I'm 10 sentences in and it's nothing but repetition. n nPeople are starving for the truth; nothing, nothing, nothing.
I know that the love of money is the root of all evil, but President Obama does not respect money and neither does the UAW.
MSNBC has declared it better than the Sermon on the Mount.
This is the worst please make love to me out of pity speech in the history of the world. And I'm a conservative girl who believes in good and responsible citizenship. n nAll that thinking and emoting and defense by Clinton for naught. n nP.S. Mike, if you're reading I tried to respond to your last post but it wouldn't take. Maybe it'll appear later. Doesn't really matter, just saying.
Walking proof of the ancient American wisdom "talk is cheap"
I'm trying to work my way through Hayek's Constitution of Liberty. I don't think Hayek is understood or explained very well, at least interpretations I've come across. n nBut the reason Hayek resurfaces is because he details the central planners delusions and incompetence very well. And that's just what you saw tonight. n nI'm not sure that Clinton masks that in that he was actually capable of governing right of center. n nAnd I don't know if maintaining Glass-Steagall would have prevented the derivatives bundling but non-ideolgocial economists I trust think it would be a good idea to reinstate it. And because of that I hold Clinton and Gramm responsible for hare-brained leadership. n
One last thing, what about his pitiful claim that he's sick of saying "I'm President Obama and I approve this message?" Is that some sort of Niebuhrian advance? How is it possible to have graduated from Harvard, Magna cum Laude, and give a speech like this at a time like this?
The subject of Alan Dershowitz came up in a post a day or so ago in the peanut gallery section, of which I am a proud contributor. Now I am no genius when it comes to the economy,however; it seems to me that Dershwitz’ support for Obama proves his political alliances are more important to him than the truth or the health of his country. He certainly understands that the jobs we have gained under Obama are not equivalant one for one, to those lost under Obama. Please correct me if I am wrong. Quality jobs, such as professional jobs; engineering, medicine, accounting, computer science, jobs that require college versus a job at k mart or staples or walmart, which requie a desperate person, can not be construed as equivalant. There has to be an algorhythm or equation to factor in job quality, earning strength and potential. Jobs which sustain families and those whose participants are defined as “the working poor”.In food, we have the ANDI score which measures the nutritious density of a food. Why do we not have these kinds of statistical tools in common useage by media “experts”, to help the public understand what the real state of affairs are in The USA?
It seems to me, in order to understand how to grow the economy to accomodate more jobs, we need to understand where the good jobs we had went, why and how to get them back. Otherwise, what we have here is a shell game in which the middle class will continue to errode and average level of education, prosperity and quality of life will sink like a stone. Where are these new jobs going to come from unless they are low paying jobs, minimum wage coupled to decreasing benefits including social security and pension. The President does not control this one, but business. They are the ones who have shipped our good jobs out. Why are they going to suddenly reverse course and bring em back. They will not. NO WAY. On the contrary, they will continue to strive to lower costs and increase production. Those who have jobs are going to have to learn to work like dogs, exponentially. The good jobs will be phased out, as much as possible with improvements in technology and the export of the high cost work loads, like professionals.
Think things are bad now, try next year.
Obama does not have any ideas. Romney had better explain how he is going to end the current situation as a result of “free trade”.
The president has repeatedly called for $4 trillion reduction in DEFICIT not DEBT. That means he intends to increase DEBT by $6 trillion more, not the original projection of $10 trillion more. This is deliberately disingenuous as most people think of the word DEFICIT to mean DEBT. Clinton spoke of $4 trillion reduction in DEBT, which was clearly a fabrication of his and a lie to boot.. So much for Clinton's spiel about arithmetic.