31 January 2012

State of the Union Address 2012

A little late but here are my thoughts nonetheless...

Overall, this State of the Union address seemed like a rehash of past State of the Union addresses with a few random other ideas thrown in... jobs, jobs, green jobs, energy independence, clean energy, blah, blah blah, higher taxes, paying your "fair share", blame the last administration, we need more bureaucracy, force kids to graduate (really?!), blah, blah, comprehensive immigration reform, infrastructure needs work, more regulations, with or without Congress he'll move ahead, didn't know where the Arab Spring is headed -- and see, you didn't miss anything.

It was hard to take anything he said too seriously.

Let's start with President Obama's claim that the rich need to start paying their "fair share" of taxes. Besides the fact that the top 10% of earners pay 70% of all taxes - maybe it was just me, but it seemed funny to see Timothy Geitner, tax cheat, sitting there listening intently to the speech. Not that Geitner was the only Obama appointee to find himself behind on his taxes of course - there's a slew of them.

Or perhaps the Federal government as a whole may want to take a look at their own backyard before making a mess in the rest of ours. Turns out that they owe 3.4 billion in back taxes. Hmmm.
Agency Amount Owed by Employees
Postal Service $269,641,265
Senate $2,134,501
House of Representatives $8,535,974
Executive Office of the President $833,970
Active duty military $111,027,905
Moving on. Jobs. Yup, we know that those "shovel ready" jobs weren't as "shovel ready" as they thought, ha ha. Also, funny is how that XL Pipeline from Canada would've put thousands of those construction workers he's so concerned about back to work - glad he's also so worried about the United States' energy independence as well. That's a joke.

And what about that pesky 16 trillion dollar deficit? Couldn't be that important - it only got mentioned in passing.

Oh yes, Obama did mention something about cutting back government - but it seemed strange coming from a fellow who did all he could over the last three years to grow government to unsustainable proportions. Never mind that new health care law coming down the pipe creating what will surely be another bloated and unaccountable bureaucracy controlling the most personal parts of our lives.

It was certainly a strange speech. The President went on to mention the "Arab Spring" saying how it was going to play out was "uncertain". Really?! It seems pretty clear where it going to me and most other people. The most moderate of Arab countries - Egypt - has democratically elected 70% Islamic leaning parties, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. They're even threatening to throw the peace deal Egypt had with Israel out the window and into the Nile River. I'm sure glad that democracy movement is working out.

The statement that certainly seemed most random and out of sync was when Obama quoted Abraham Lincoln,
I’m a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.
It's truly hard to imagine he believes this statement by any stretch. We know that Democrats believe that the role of government is to step in and play parent whenever it can. Even more so, a left-leaning Democrat such as Obama who believes that more government is always better... I'm stunned that he was able to utter such words with a straight face.

That being said, hopefully next year's State of the Union address will be given by someone (anyone!) other than Obama.

Charles Krauthammer: The State of the Union Flop

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent! Trump called Obama the Manchurian candidate because there is NO record of his college grades allowed to be examined, any former girlfriends, college mates, etc. Even his Social Security number was taken from a dead man on the east coast. Absolutely vote ABO. At least with whoever Obama runs against the public knows his background.

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