Just watched the SotU address. Found it very…underwhelming. Standard pie in the sky, chicken in every pot, yes we can drivel, and what I consider a startling error.
Tonight, Obama promised to veto any bill containing an earmark. I can’t believe he did that. Amazingly ill considered. He’s painted himself into a corner, now he’s got to either veto virtually every bill that reaches his desk, or eat those words. Strongly suspect he’ll have to eat them. There will be a “must sign” bill that will contain earmarks at some point during the remainder of his term. And the political ad writes itself.
Really thought the guy was too smart for such a dumb mistake.
January 25, 2011. The beginning of the end for the Obama administration.
You mean the same way pledging to avoid earmarks and then immediately reneging on that promise is going to seal the fate of the House Republican majority? Pshaw.
I liked Paul’s speech more. I’m tired of hearing lets do this and this and that and maybe some of this and we’ll do this too!
Meanwhile back in the real world…
The only part of Obama’s speech that struck a cord with me is him saying he will not go back to the days of people being denied coverage for preexisting conditions.
I think you’re overstating the case. State of the Union speeches are always filled with broken promises. There’s a good reason for that: You say the things people want to hear when all eyes are on you, then you ignore them later when no one’s paying attention. I’ve watched pretty much every SOTU speech since Reagan, and they’re all like that.
This pledge was perhaps more specific than it should have been. He should have said something like, “I will not tolerate unnecessary earmarks, and will veto bills that come to my desk loaded with them.” That would give him enough wiggle room. As it is, he gave the other side a talking point. But that’s all he gave them - a talking point. It wasn’t a presidency-killing statement by any stretch of the imagination.
I actually thought it was a pretty good speech. His plea for high-speed rail was wrong-headed, and there was certainly plenty of political gamesmanship in the speech, but that’s what those speeches are for. Every president does it.
Obama’s job in the SOTU after the Democratic shellacking was to strike a bipartisan tone while not sounding defensive. It was to promise bipartisanship while still signaling that he’d stand tough for the principles he believes in. It was to toss bones to the other side to placate them, to say nice things about them and to talk about how important it was to work together. That’s what the country wanted to hear, and that’s what he gave them. And as usual, he delivered it brilliantly.
As for actual policy, of course it was a mixed bag - probably for everyone. I doubt if there’s anyone on the left or right who was overjoyed by it, but that’s exactly what it needed to be.
Interesting that Paul Ryan is giving the rebuttal. That’s who I would have picked. I haven’t watched it yet - off to do that now.
I liked his speech a lot. My take away was “We need to consider where we want to be and seriously invest in our future” and I have no disagreement with that sentiment.
My favorite part was "I’m asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re doing just fine on their own.”
We do a lot of stuff like that that just doesn’t make any sense.
Really? After the GOP spent two years campaigning on stopping earmarks and then went back to business as usual after they got elected? If anything, Obama stole the Republicans’ bugbear right out from under them. Classic triangulation, almost Clintonesque.
I personally think all the earmark/pork handwringing is stupid…earmarks don’t make up any significant portion of the federal budget. If you eliminated every last one, you’d only remove 1% of the total budget. But if the Republicans want to use earmarks as their bloody shirt, I can only applaud Obama for grabbing it off the ground where they threw it on Nov. 3.
In what universe was Obama ever going to get the Tea Party vote? It will cost him swing voters, and he’s already disappointed those oh so starry eyed first time voters. He’s a President that is on the ropes.
Loved the bit about the winner of the Science Fair getting the same respect as the winner of the Super Bowl. Yeah…that will happen shortly after cheerleaders start fucking members of the chess club.
Bah. He mentions oil company tax breaks but not a word on farm subsidies.
Yeah I know the Pubs like their farm subsidies too but I can’t take these guys seriously until this is eliminated.
A chicken in every pot has a origin reaching back into history. You’ll be surprised to learn that it was used as a campaign slogan. President Obama, on the other hand, was speaking about the future: “So tonight, I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: by 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources.”
January 8, 2011. A new beginning for the White House and the Congress.
Not a word on unemployment. Assuming unemployment does get better, this speech looks a lot better. Assuming unemployment stays the same or gets worse, it becomes a lot harder to process.
The “answer”, as it has been the past two years, has been New Deal programs. Let’s put people back to work, let’s fix what’s broken, improve what we have, and invest in “winning the future” (I don’t like that phrase) and get it done. Let’s pay for it by making cuts in defense spending, by revamping our tax code, by pulling some more revenue into our coffers, and also changing the payout age for Social Security and increasing it by a few years (5? 7?)
Also something that wasn’t mentioned: foreclosures. We’ve need a moratorium on foreclosures. Keep people in their homes, and let’s get the people in them to pay what they can.
The stock market is going a lot better, there’s money for hiring, but businesses are sitting on the money (that we gave them, in many cases) until things look better. The answer won’t come from private enterprise, and it “shouldn’t”. It makes perfect sense for a business to sit back on cash reserves it may have, instead of hire.
Paul Ryan’s speech was given rather well. I like how he said it, but he also made no mention of the things that Obama omitted as well. I think that Ryan’s message plays into Obama’s hands, at least a little bit.
Lastly, I partially agree with what **Oakminster **said at the beginning. I don’t agree with the outcome, but it’s a pretty silly thing to put out there. “If he wants to be serious about stopping earmarks, why start now? Shouldn’t he have started with the Stimulus package?” will be the response. Of course, that ignores that the Stimulus package did some great things, but it didn’t go far enough.
It’s the break the McCain campaign has been waiting for!
I doubt he can hold to that promise in the long term. If it discourages earmarks, he can say he did what he could to meet the Republicans and people who are concerned about spending halfway. There were several other points in the speech that did the same thing. I wasn’t sure where he was going initially with the “win the future” concept and I’m still a bit :rolleyes: at that wording, but I thought he did a good job in tying the individual proposals to that concept. I’m still skeptical about his high speed rail ideas, but I’m willing to be persuaded they are worthwhile if someone can do that. I was a little surprised to see him address illegal immigration the way he did. He spent almost all of 2009 on the health care fight, the budget isn’t going to be much fun, and apparently he’s willing to step right into another enormous, complicated debate after that. It won’t be the first thing that gets tackled but I’m interested to see what happens.
“Win the future” is an important, possibly the most important, part of the speech. We need to have some new ideas and some new approaches to how we fundamentally do things. If anything, it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
Do you really think that Republicans are going to care about that? That’s almost exactly what they’ll say to try and hammer home the point that **Oakminster **is trying to make.