State of the Union

I read the text of Mr. Obama’s recent State of the Union speech, and I’ve been following much of the political commentary about it as well. As to be expected, the news writers are in a quandary, the Democrats think he’s wonderful and the Republicans are still fuming. The moderates on the other hand are looking at things with a raised eyebrow. The far right and far left are still raging at each other about almost everything, as is usual. Mr. Obama once again demonstrated that he’s an accomplished speaker, and that his teleprompter crew is getting pretty experienced. His speech writers didn’t seem to know just what it is he wants to accomplish, and I sort of wonder if even he knows what he wants. So what did he have to say? Not much really, if you remove the platitudes, vague promises, and Bush bashing.

The Constitution directs the President to inform Congress from time to time, as to the “State of the Union”. From this, I would assume that Congress was to be told about whatever condition we find ourselves, as in “we’re broke and in serious trouble”, or “we’re winning/losing the war”, or even “we’re rich, famous, and everybody loves us”. But it seems over the last century this annual address has become little more than a platform for the President to tell us about his political agenda. In this case, and not surprisingly, Mr. O said a lot in the State of the Union speech… well, he did use a lot of words. But what did he actually propose? Pretty much the same things we’ve been hearing since the campaign I'm afraid, that the government creates jobs, the government needs to control healthcare, and that the government needs to spend a lot of money on education. But it was notable in proposing a (partial, and rather small) spending freeze “next year” while proposing a massive government “investment” in assorted left wing programs this year.

Mr. Obama claims that “…there are about two million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. Two hundred thousand work in construction and clean energy; 300,000 are teachers and other education workers. Tens of thousands are cops, firefighters, correctional officers, first responders. And we’re on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year.” Of course I can’t refute his numbers, but you might note that while official unemployment still hovers above 10% (and the latest official "corrected" numbers are over 20%), most of those jobs he speaks of are government jobs, not “productive jobs” that increase our nation’s wealth, but rather these are positions that spend our tax dollars indefinitely. (I will applaud the “cops, firefighters, first responders” part though.) Now if he could figure out a way to increase the number of health professionals in the country, perhaps a little more competition in the industry would decrease the cost of health care, without a government takeover?

He also said that: “Rather than fight the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades, it’s time to try something new. Let’s invest in our people without leaving them a mountain of debt. Let’s meet our responsibility to the citizens who sent us here. Let’s try common sense.” Okay so far, even though his proposed budget will increase the deficit by roughly three trillion dollars… “…to give our people the government they deserve.” Well, we’ve got the government we deserve I think, or at least we shouldn't complain as we keep reelecting the same bunch of crooks to office, decade after decade. In his speech, Mr. Obama did manage to say one thing about the government we deserve that I can agree with. That was: “Despite our hardships, our union is strong. We do not give up. We do not quit. We do not allow fear or division to break our spirit. In this new decade, it’s time the American people get a government that matches their decency; that embodies their strength.” Americans are a very tough and resilient people after all, and certainly no stranger to either strife or hardship. No foreign power has ever managed to break us, and many have tried. And I fully agree with him that our people deserve a government that matches that resiliency. But that government must be one that encourages productivity and not dependency, honesty not corruption, innovation not stagnation, and thrift not waste. It must not be a government that encourages fear in our citizenry, as we’ve seen happen so much over the last few years. Today we face seemingly insurmountable difficulties that must be solved if we hope to continue as a great nation, and those solutions are only going to come from a government and a people that live in the real world, not in vague far left socialist dreams.

And finally he said, to my supprise, "God bless America". Again, I'll agree, and add "If he can still find us that is…"