Right ON!!
Posted on The Heritage Foundation-By Mike Brownfield-On January 25, 2012:
“Speaking last night from the U.S. Capitol, President Barack Obama described the state of the Union as he sees it — strong and getting stronger, with future growth fueled by his pursuit of progressive policies and an expansion of government, all architected to bring about his brand of “fairness.” The President essentially redelivered his 2011 State of the Union address — complete with the same empty rhetoric, class warfare cloaked in “fairness,” and proposals for massive tax and spending increases.
The speech was notable for the items he did not mention, including many of the failed spending programs and policies he undertook over the past three years, the foreign policy and defense challenges he has exacerbated, and the economic actions he failed to take that would have created jobs and spurred economic growth.
Governor Mitch Daniels (R-IN), who delivered the response to the State of the Union address, shined a light on those titanic omissions — the state of America’s economic and fiscal crises, the President’s promise to fix them, and his failure to do anything but make matters worse, all amid a trillion dollars in stimulus spending and a rapidly expanding bureaucracy:
“The percentage of Americans with a job is at the lowest in decades. One in five men of prime working age, and nearly half of all persons under 30, did not go to work today.
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.”
Apart from the truth about the depths of America’s unemployment crisis and the scope of government spending, the President barely mentioned his signature legislative item, Obamacare, which is facing a Supreme Court constitutional challenge; Social Security and the country’s entitlement crisis; his decision to say “no” to the Keystone XL pipeline and the jobs it would bring with it; the Solyndra scandal and the failures of his green energy initiatives; the illegality of his appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Board and the National Labor Relations Board; the Senate’s failure to pass a budget for 1,000 days under the leadership of his own party; the high costs that his additional regulations bring with them; his party’s opposition to free trade agreements; the fraudulent elections in Russia; the ongoing collapse of the Euro; warnings about his decision to slash defense spending; the remaining challenges in Afghanistan; and the violence that has erupted in Iraq after the departure of U.S. troops.
It’s not surprising, of course, that the President would want to hide from his failures, but it’s troubling to see that he plans to continue on the progressive course he has set for the country. In the President’s words, “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”
This “fairness” argument, which the President cloaked in the most moderate of terms, lays the foundation for a wholesale deconstruction of America as we know it. Instead of a country where individuals are free to rise and fall on their own merits, the President seeks a system where an all-powerful federal government guarantees equal outcomes, regardless of one’s merit. The Heritage Foundation’s Matthew Spalding explains:
“In [Obama’s] view, “fairness” flows not from opportunity and freedom of the individual, but from more government power, federal education programs, economic regulations, and infrastructure spending. And, of course, raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for these “investments” would only be fair.
Such policy prescriptions lead to a governing class that insists on enforcing political and economic ‘fairness’ rather than letting us govern ourselves, choose our own vocations and earn our own success. The idea that the government can and should step in to guarantee economic fairness is contrary to the founding principles that make America so great-and that enable its citizens to achieve success. It is contrary to the very meaning of the American Dream.”
The United States faces significant challenges: a $15 trillion debt, 13.1 million unemployed Americans, exploding entitlement and health care costs, a broken education system, a military in disrepair, the continued threat of terrorism, a nuclear Iran, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan, among others. There is hope, but it does not emanate from a bigger, more powerful federal government that squelches entrepreneurship, ignores our fiscal crisis, and disregards the need for a strong national defense. The President says the state of the Union is getting stronger, but he is doing very little to ensure that happens.”
The Heritage Foundation’s analysts provided in-depth, issue-by-issue expert analysis of last night’s State of the Union address. You can find our 2012 Reaction Roundup on The Foundry blog.
Source:
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/01/25/morning-bell-obamas-state-of-omission/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Note: The following articles and/or blog posts relate to this disturbing issue-You Decide:
Right ON!!
I. Obama's proposals evasive and irresponsible!
Posted on FoxNews.com-By Rich Lowry-On January 24, 2012:
“Don’t worry, America. There’s nothing that ails this country that can’t be made right by a catalogue of piddling proposals that will be forgotten tomorrow—and oh yeah, more taxes on the rich. Such was the message of President Obama’s State of the Union address.
It made Bill Clinton’s notoriously endless lists of poll-tested banalities look like artistry by comparison. It was light and forgettable, so insubstantial it could have floated off the teleprompter. It was spend more here, create a new program there, carve out a new subsidy in the tax code over there—and repeat as necessary, for over an hour.
The president steered clear of some of the nation’s gravest domestic questions. You would never know we are accumulating debt at a $1.3 trillion annual clip. You would never know that health care costs are soaring and a vast political and constitutional fight is ongoing over his health care law (mentioned once, only very briefly, in passing). You would never know that Medicare and Social Security will soon be groaning under the coming wave of baby boomer retirements. You would never know the tax code is a hideously complex, economically inefficient monstrosity.
All of that was left aside, so the president could strike an uplifting, inoffensive tone proposing a raft of superficially unobjectionable new government actions. It was one thing for Bill Clinton to take this tack in the late 90s when the economy was roaring. It was evasive and irresponsible for President Obama to do it now in our current straits.
Yet, it could have been worse. I was expecting an “Occupy” State of the Union, an address so dependent on the themes of the anti-Wall Street protests that you could almost hear the drums and smell the body odor. Yes, he invoked fairness and he devoted a passage to calling for more taxes on the rich, with the obligatory invocation of Warren Buffet’s secretary, sitting beside Michelle Obama. But this didn’t define the speech, which struck a more upbeat tone. The president rightly hailed the killing of Usama bin Laden, noted the signs of economic recovery and forcefully pushed back against the notion of American decline. It wouldn’t strike most people as a particularly divisive or partisan speech.
It was cynical all the same. The president piled cliches (“teachers matter”), on top of nice-sounding new initiatives (a Trade Enforcement Unit, a Financial Crimes Unit), and insincere bows to the other side (like a call for regulatory restraint after signing the regulatory behemoths of Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank financial bill). This was not the speech of a president interested in anything other than the politics of his re-election—yet another way in which it wasn’t noteworthy.
- Rich Lowry is the editor of the National Review and a syndicated columnist.
Source:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/01/24/proposals-that-will-be-forgotten-tomorrow/#ixzz1kUF4a1fv
II. Obama delivers a confrontational State of the Union address!
Right ON!!
Posted on The LA Times-By David Lauter, Washington Bureau-On January 24, 2012:
“Reporting from Washington— By using his State of the Union speech to draw sharp contrasts with Republicans on such high-profile issues as taxes and the housing market, President Obama opened an election-year debate on the role of government that could be more intense than any in decades.
Warning Congress that “I intend to fight obstruction with action,” he painted a confrontational picture that stands in sharp contrast with the conciliatory approach taken by the last Democrat to seek a second term, Bill Clinton.
In fact, Obama’s strategy more closely resembles that ofGeorge W. Bushin 2004, who used polarizing issues to increase turnout of his supporters and made few concessions to the center. The approach increases the chance that if he wins a second term, Obama could claim a mandate for his program. It also carries more risk of failure in a nation still deeply skeptical of government activism.
Only a few months ago, many voters had seemed on the verge of writing Obama off. But in recent weeks, two developments have given him a chance to ask those voters for another look. One is the economy, which has started to show signs of improvement — declining unemployment, rising consumer confidence and reduced levels of household debt. The other is the way the Republican primary race recently has focused on the vast wealth (and relatively low tax burden) of the party’s sometimes front-runner, Mitt Romney.
Obama drove straight at the wealth issue with the signature proposal of his speech: a minimum tax for millionaires that formed part of his call for all Americans to pay their “fair share.” The proposal, requiring people with incomes of more than $1 million to pay at least 30% in taxes, would conveniently — administration officials insist coincidentally — double the taxes that Romney paid last year, according to the tax return the former Massachusetts governor released earlier in the day.
Similarly, the speech’s other major domestic proposal — a plan to make mortgage refinancings more available to homeowners who owe more than their homes’ value — would insert the government more directly into the housing market.
Republicans have adamantly resisted higher taxes on those they term “job creators.” And they have called for the federal government to get out of the housing market entirely, saying that federal involvement has only made the country’s foreclosure crisis worse.
They also wasted no time in rejecting Obama’s basic premise about the conflicting interests of the middle class and America’s wealthiest citizens. “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,” Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said in his Republican response. He accused Obama of “extremism” and called for lowering tax rates.
Like Clinton, Obama seeks reelection after a disorienting midterm defeat in which Republicans captured control of the House. Both Democrats delivered their election-year State of the Union speech after months of bruising confrontations with Congress in which they tried — with some success — to paint Republicans as extremists.
But Clinton sought to co-opt the GOP’s rhetoric, memorably declaring early in his address that “the era of big government is over.” And even as he used the power of his office to block many Republican efforts to roll back government, he largely set aside his own plans to expand its reach in such areas as healthcare. By blurring the contrast between himself and the GOP, Clinton made himself a frustratingly elusive target, but set up a campaign that avoided most major issues.
The difference between Obama’s approach and Clinton’s reflects the personalities of the two men, but also the times.
Clinton, for all the adulation he now receives from the left, entered national politics trying to break the hold that liberal interest groups had on his party and criticizing what he called the “brain-dead policies of both parties.” Obama, for all his professed desire to create a “post-partisan” political culture, comes from a notably more liberal tradition.
More importantly, the political center toward which Clinton tacked has eroded so much in 16 years that Obama probably could not follow Clinton’s model even if he wished to.
America’s political parties have grown more polarized. Democrats have moved somewhat to the left; Republicans have shifted many steps to the right, according to political scientists who have analyzed congressional votes, issues positions and polling data. Policy ideas that only a decade ago characterized the conservative side of major debates — a mandate that individuals buy health insurance in a regulated market, for example, or a “cap and trade” system to limit pollution — are now excoriated by Republicans.
Over the past year, in which he sought and failed to achieve a “grand bargain” with Republicans on the federal budget, Obama learned painfully just how little ground remains in the political center.
“Obama knows he has 44% of the electorate” to start with, and in a country as divided as the U.S., “44% is a big number,” said Peter Hart, the Democratic pollster. He’s decided “I’m going to keep those people on board, then we’ll go after everyone else.”
Getting the rest of the way to a majority depends on persuading a handful of crucial voters in the middle who find themselves tugged in two directions.
On the one hand, voters — including those who call themselves independents — hold a deeply skeptical view of government and its ability to help them. Fewer than one-third of voters have a positive view of the size and power of the federal government, a share that has fallen steadily since the early years of Bush’s tenure, according to a series of Gallup polls.
At the same time, pollsters have found a sharp and rapid increase in the percentage of people who doubt the Republican idea that America has no class divisions. In 2009, a majority of both Republicans and independents said they saw little if any conflict between rich and poor, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. Now, more than two-thirds of Americans, including those independent voters, say they think such conflicts are “strong” or “very strong.”
In the balance between that skepticism of government and the acknowledgment of class conflict, the 2012 election could be determined.”
Source:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-state-union-analysis-20120125,0,1700530.story
III. What Obama Didn’t Say in the State of the Union!-Posted on The Weekly Standard-By MARK HEMINGWAY-On January 24, 2012:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/what-obama-didnt-say-state-union_618459.html
IV. GOP Rebuttal to State of the Union!-Posted on FoxNews.com-On January 24, 2012:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/24/transcript-gop-rebuttal-to-state-union/#ixzz1kUKEpndP
V. Fact checking the 2012 State of the Union speech!-Posted on The Washington Post-By Glenn Kessler–On January 25, 2012:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/fact-checking-the-2012-state-of-the-union-speech/2012/01/25/gIQAa5CTPQ_blog.html
VI. State of the Union: Fact Checking the President!-Posted on ABCNews.go.com-On January 24, 2012:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/state-of-the-union-fact-checking-the-president/
VII. The Eternal State of the Union: ‘Why does every SOTU sound eerily familiar? Because presidents have been saying the same things for a half-century.’-Posted on reason.com-By Matt Welch-On January 24, 2012:
http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/24/the-eternal-state-of-the-union
Note: My following blog posts contain numerous articles and/or blog posts and videos that relate to this disturbing issue-You Decide:
Progressive group maps out President Obama’s strategy for next 2 years!
http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/progressive-group-maps-out-president-obama’s-strategy-for-next-2-years/
Obama the Polarizer!
http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/obama-the-polarizer/
Nearly 80 percent don’t trust the government!
http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/nearly-80-percent-don’t-trust-the-government/
Is it important to understand the Marxist assault on the foundations of our system?
http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/is-it-important-to-understand-the-marxist-assault-on-the-foundations-of-our-system/
Note: If you have a problem viewing any of the listed blog posts please copy web site and paste it on your browser. Be aware that some of the articles and/or blog posts or videos listed within the contents of the above blog post(s) may have been removed by this administration because they may have considered them to be too controversial. Sure seems like any subject matter that may shed some negative light on this administration is being censored-What happened to free speech?-You Decide.
“Food For Thought”
God Bless the U.S.A.!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q65KZIqay4E&feature=related
Semper Fi!
Jake
