Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Presidential Platitudes for 2012, redux
President Obama delivered his third annual State of the Union (SOU) address this evening in front of a curious and weary national audience. Based on his past grandiose speeches laden with platitudes, fictional facts, and empty tiresome promises of change and hope, was anybody listening? Truly after three desultory years, does any rational taxpaying citizen of this country believe in this man's hollow-throaty-hand waving claptrap anymore? Surely, the 20 million long-suffering unemployed don't buy what he espouses.
After the speech, my questions were answered rather cleverly by comments made by the junior Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio (R-FL). Rubio said after watching the SOU address, "it's like watching a great locker room speech from a head coach (trying to exhort his players to victory) before the game but then you have to go out and perform and play the game on the field. After 3 years and you're 0-7, 0-8, 0-9, after three losing seasons, people and the players start tuning you out no matter how great the locker room speech was." To carry the metaphor a bit farther, in football, as head coach, if you lose year after year, you finally get fired.
Sure there are many who think Obama has succeeded. They desperately point to ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, Bin Laden's death, the end of the Iraq war, low interest rates, TARP and the Federal Recovery Act for dubious victories of sorts. I say...Scoreboard.
Scoreboard reads. America's exceptionalism has been downgraded. An emboldened China. Unemployment still high. Debt soared $5TRILLION in three years. Public trust in government is broken. Country sadly divided. Corporations hoarding investment cash...waiting. Small businesses barely making it. Future business health care costs unknown. Stagnant wages. Stock market spooked. Medicare and Social Security running out of funds, quickly. Fannie and Freddie still operating and losing millions per month. Housing and construction still in tatters. Fuel prices escalating. Banks reluctant to lend. Borrowers unfit to qualify for a loan. 401ks haven't recovered. Pensions ravaged. Retirements postponed. Borders still porous. Public education a disgrace. Abortions continue unabated. Churches under seige from the government. Iran continually threaten Israel and rest of the civilized world. Gitmo still open for business. No entitlement reform. Green energy failures (Solyndra). Environmental blockages (Keystone pipeline). 12 million more families on food stamps. Defense cutbacks. Whew...all that aside and more, I ask you, are we better off now than we were three plus years ago?
Returning to President Obama's SOU past addresses, they are an interesting study in his relentless re-election campaign management manifesto. Year one, 2010, was his vapid acceptance speech. Year two, 2011, was a puzzlingly childlike speech about a Sputnick moment, solar shingles and 1 million new jobs made even though the unemployment rate was over 9%. Year three, this year 2012, was his very transparent re-election stump speech of 'I'm coming to get you 1%ers'. Is that it? Going after millionaires. But, Mr. President, the country is still struggling, what do we do in the meantime? Wait until November to re-elect you for four more years based on THAT performance? Four more years of this. To quote John McEnroe, "you can't be serious?"
In terms of the serious problems of reducing unemployment, helping the middle class and "leveling the playing field for all", Obama's main strategy in turning our country around is: raising federal income taxes on all income including capital gains (now at 15%) to 30% on millionaires without deductions. Besides destroying stock investment by millionaires in the very companies who hire middle class folks, what's this feeble liberal idea going to contribute to the Fed's coffers, maybe $100Billion yearly? $100Billion is what is paid by the USA to the Chinese monthly to carry our debt. We need a bigger plan and better execution than taxing the rich to get out of this canyon of debt. We are $15TRILLION in the hole, don't you get THAT?
Meanwhile back in the chamber...listening like enraptured first graders to their teacher, Obama's lieutenants obediently sat in the front row...smirking, particularly, the Jimmy Durante-like "long nez" Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta. And is it me or did VP Joe Biden hire Pelosi's skin stretcher and botox expert over the holidays? His face looked a bit more taut than usual. Alarmingly, the only Cabinet Member not present for the SOU was "Big Sis" Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, #18 in the succession line. Allegedly, she was stationed in the Situation Room if anything tragic happened that night in the House chamber. Double gulp!!
As if Obama's hubris is not enough to inflame his detractors, the tin-eared one boldly insulted all of us non-believers and skeptics with a low blow, "If you don't think America is back, then, you don't know what you're talking about." Certainly, not a presidential Reaganesque moment in the history of SOU addresses.
Hopefully, I have seen the last of President Obama SOU addresses. However, there is no guarantee that the other side will provide a candidate that is intellectually nimble and capably cunning enough to defeat the Obama-Chicago machine in the fall. Yet, Obama is on the ropes because of his anti-capitalist policies. If the Republican nominee fails to capitalize on Obama's inept presidency and lose in November, he and the Republican Party will deserve my scorn.
November 6, 2012 represents a generational opportunity for the Republicans. Don't blow it!!!
oh brother...
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