The State of the Union

Here are a few random thoughts on the passing political scene (I think I stole that line from Thomas Sowell).

I (half) watched Obama's State of the Union speech this past week. I wasn't planning to do so, but my wife is teaching a government class this semester and wanted to set a good example for her students by watching it. So I sat in the room with her and listened to the speech in the background while working on other things.

The speech went on and on (over an hour I think) but never seemed to address the real challenges we face as a country. In all those thousands of words, Obama barely touched on the topic of our crippling national debt and completely ignored the vital issue of entitlement spending. In fact, the speech was filled with new spending initiatives and government "solutions." It's all business as usual for Obama. Lots of "investments in our future," which is code for government spending. And as expected, a lot of talk about everyone getting "their fair share" -- Obama is obsessed with income inequality. His only suggestion for fixing our debt problem is to make the rich pay a lot more in taxes. Never mind that the wealthiest 10% already pay pretty much all the taxes and that about 50% of Americans pay no income taxes at all. Never mind that, even if the U.S. government confiscated all the wealth of the 400 richest Americans, it would still be less than just the current year's budget deficit under Obama.

There was so much irony in the speech, for those who have been following Obama's actions as President. He talked a lot about working together for the good of the country -- ironic coming from a President who has done so much to divide us and has made zero effort to reach out to the other side of the political spectrum. He talked about Washington's failures, apparently unaware that he himself is the face of Washington and Washington's failures are his failures. He bragged about oil and gas production during his first term, even though he did everything he could to oppose it, including dramatically cutting back on federal oil and gas leases, banning certain offshore drilling, and opposing the Keystone pipeline. He complained about not being able to get quick up-or-down votes on his judicial nominees, even though he repeatedly joined his party in filibustering Bush nominees as a U.S. Senator. He praised the results of the bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler, and just a few short minutes later came down hard against bailouts. Against all evidence, he insisted that our relationship with Israel is stronger than it has ever been and that America is not in decline.

Most bizarrely, Obama's idea of an inspiring ending was to say that "this nation is great because we worked as a team. This nation is great because we get each other’s backs.” Yeah, that's great if you're describing your teenage son's soccer team. We've come a long way from "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

The Republican response, given by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, was everything Obama's speech was not -- short, concise, and focused on the important stuff. Here are some excerpts from the speech that are well worth reading:

In three short years, an unprecedented explosion of spending, with borrowed money, has added trillions to an already unaffordable national debt. And yet, the President has put us on a course to make it radically worse in the years ahead. The federal government now spends one of every four dollars in the entire economy; it borrows one of every three dollars it spends. No nation, no entity, large or small, public or private, can thrive, or survive intact, with debts as huge as ours....

We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots; we must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves....

The routes back to an America of promise, and to a solvent America that can pay its bills and protect its vulnerable, start in the same place. The only way up for those suffering tonight, and the only way out of the dead end of debt into which we have driven, is a private economy that begins to grow and create jobs, real jobs, at a much faster rate than today....

The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy. It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.

That means a dramatically simpler tax system of fewer loopholes and lower rates. A pause in the mindless piling on of expensive new regulations that devour dollars that otherwise could be used to hire somebody. It means maximizing on the new domestic energy technologies that are the best break our economy has gotten in years....

The mortal enemies of Social Security and Medicare are those who, in contempt of the plain arithmetic, continue to mislead Americans that we should change nothing. Listening to them much longer will mean that these proud programs implode, and take the American economy with them. It will mean that coming generations are denied the jobs they need in their youth and the protection they deserve in their later years.

It’s absolutely so that everyone should contribute to our national recovery, including of course the most affluent among us. There are smart ways and dumb ways to do this: the dumb way is to raise rates in a broken, grossly complex tax system, choking off growth without bringing in the revenues we need to meet our debts. The better course is to stop sending the wealthy benefits they do not need, and stop providing them so many tax preferences that distort our economy and do little or nothing to foster growth....

As a loyal opposition, who put patriotism and national success ahead of party or ideology or any self-interest, we say that anyone who will join us in the cause of growth and solvency is our ally, and our friend. We will speak the language of unity. Let us rebuild our finances, and the safety net, and reopen the door to the stairway upward; any other disagreements we may have can wait.