The most dramatic part of President Obama’s State of the Union speech was his impassioned appeal for more gun control. Shamelessly invoking gun victims, including the children of Newtown, Connecticut, the president demanded that each of his proposals for new restrictions should be given an up or down vote in Congress even though none would do much to end gun violence. That earned him a standing ovation from Democrats even if many moderate members of his party from red states have no intention of ever putting themselves in a position where they might have to vote on such measures.
But while the “deserve a vote” rhetoric about gun control got the most applause the centerpiece of his address was a laundry list of government programs that he wants implemented that amounts to a second stimulus in all but name. For the most part this was just another straight-forward demand for a liberal vision in which government could and must afford to do just about everything from pre-K education to green jobs to easing the way for more home ownership. But by claiming that this staggering wish list wouldn’t “add a single dime to the deficit” he may have created a one-man credibility gap that even his impressive speaking ability and personal charm can’t close. You have to believe in the Tooth Fairy to buy the idea that this much new bureaucracy and involvement in the private sector won’t wind up costing a lot more money that we don’t have.
Obama’s roster of programs he wants implemented is long. Some of it involves ideas many Republicans will support like immigration reform. But much of it resolves around liberal ideological talking points like climate change which he hopes to solve by spending more on the kind of green jobs that gave the country scandals like the Solyndra boondoggle. He also threatened to take unilateral executive action on global warming if Congress didn’t act which means the Environmental Protection Agency will be given new unaccountable powers to crush economic growth around the country as well as driving up the cost of gas and just about everything else.
Other liberal patent nostrums like a minimum wage increase — a proposal that will kill jobs and hurt the very people the president claims to want to help — were also plugged. But perhaps the most curious item was his demand that the government ease the way for more home ownership. Given that the 2008 fiscal crisis was caused in large measure by government intervention in the market that made it easier for people who couldn’t afford to buy a home to get mortgages, going down that road again shows just how clueless this administration remains.
As for the immediate problem of avoiding the sequestration spending cuts, the president was disingenuous as well as unrealistic. The devastating sequestration cuts was the White House’s idea for resolving the 2011 debt ceiling standoff but the president is now pretending that it is all the fault of the Republicans. But as with everything else, ideology rules when it comes to a deficit plan that merely recycled his old rhetoric. The president considers his proposal balanced but that is a misnomer since he still refuses to contemplate genuine reform of entitlements and continues to pretend that taxing the rich will solve the deficit.
The president gave relatively short shrift to foreign policy even though it is entirely possible that the confrontation with Iran and the aftermath of the pullout from Afghanistan will provide the biggest crises of his second term. It is doubtful that those listening in Tehran were impressed by his calls for more diplomacy to forestall their nuclear threat. On the other hand, the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which he claims to have defeated, were probably cheered by his talk of accelerated pullouts from Afghanistan. The Benghazi debacle that gives the lie to the administration’s claim of victory over Islamist terror never got a mention.
But the bottom line of this speech is a claim that America can have a new raft of big government proposals without further sinking the nation into debt. It may be that whopper which will remembered long after his liberal shopping list is filed in the dustbin of history.
I'd have to say that believing in the Tooth Fairy is the least harmful fairy tale we will get to hear about from our prog-lib friends today! This should be amusing, to say the least.
I was struck by President Obama's claim that what America needs is not bigger government but smarter government. This from the guy who picked Joe Biden to be his vice president…
Yeah, stupid Biden, who demolished Ryan in the VP debate.
You're kidding, right? The word for Biden's behavior in that debate is grotesque…or maybe just plain weird. But I suppose that's the kind of thing that passes for a classy performance in the minds of people who also think that Barack Obama is the smartest president in the history of the Galaxy.
He acted likea jerk during the debate.
in that cloud you live in sure !!!!!!!
"…the president demanded that each of his proposals for new restrictions should be given an up or down vote in Congress even though none would do much to end gun violence." n nAn empty statement since the GOP has blocked efforts by the Center for Disease Control to do a study on gun violence.
Well, I guess having the Centers for Disease Control study "gun violence" isn't the stupidest idea that Obama has ever come up with (let's not forget electric cars!) but it has to be up there in the top ten. Here's a modest proposal: Let's instruct the Centers for Disease Control to stick to the study of, you know, diseases.
Obama's radical agenda is clear; diminishing American power and greatness through bankrupting debt all the while pretending to be a moderate and a rational politician. Obama has learned well from his Muslim Brotherhood ("stealth") jihadist friends.
Unless Republicans and Republican leaders look to the Almighty, I suspect we are done.
Rich demo (left/far left) such as Pelosi & friends do not care about the debt because they make mega-box on the side at the expense of the average citizen.
I was directed to this by a FB share from a Jewish friend who I know is a political conservative. The article succeeds not in persuading, but in offending and depressing me. I find it shameful that there are so many Jews in America completely disconnected from the fundamental teachings of our religion and tradition: compassion, justice, humility, charity, refusal to commit violence (if possible), intellectual rigor and integrity. Jews have made America great, and in every age, the vast majority whole-heartedly supported the liberal agenda of the day. This is historical fact. What madness drives any Jew into the camp of right-wingers who love nothing better than to bash liberal politicians or anyone, all of us citizens of this nation, for standing up to favor working people over the rich, to provide aid to the aged, poor and disabled, or to protect what little remains of our precious G-d given natural world.
Or to put it another way: What madness drives any Jew into the camp of those who oppose endless increases in the size and power of the federal government, and the throttling of economic growth, and the shredding of the Constitution, and the deconstruction of American power—not to mention a foreign policy hostile to Israel? You're absolutely right, I can't imagine how any Jew could adopt such a political stance! (And don't bother to protest that Obama's foreign policy isn't hostile to Israel. Exhibit A in that regard: Chuck Hagel.)
I don't know why I'll waste my time with this, but, FWIW, as I said, Jews in America throughout history have been overwhelmingly liberal, communitarian and in favor of using the common wealth, ie. gov't, to benefit and improve our nation and our society. You are defiantly on the wrong side of Jewish values and American history. Good for you.
Right, and you can't imagine how any Jew would dissent from that worldview. I get it. So does that mean you're not a real Jew if you're not a liberal Democrat? I certainly hope that's not the point you're trying to get across. n nIncidentally, you're also assuming a fact not in evidence: that "using the common wealth, ie. gov't" actually does benefit our nation. On the evidence, I'd say that the law of diminishing returns has more or less neutered the welfare state as an agent of positive change. Today we find ourselves spending more and more to achieve less and less—hardly a sensible policy. But even the most modest proposal or reform elicits squeals of outrage and pain from progressives. n nSo maybe, just maybe, Jews should rethink their traditional devotion to liberal ideology. I can think of no more appropriate moment to do that than today, when American Jews find themselves rewarded for their devotion to the liberal cause with…Barack Obama.
Not sure … are you against the de-criminalization of so-called controlled substances? I checked out the link and, though cursory, I get the impression that you are a proponent of decriminalization. If there is one thing that both Dems and Repubs should agree on, it is the un-Constitutional prohibition of such substances.