Thoughts on the State of the Union Speech

The transcript of President Obama’s speech can be found here. Any quotes below from the speech are found in the transcript.

1. I missed the first few minutes of the speech. Did he do the traditional shout-out to members of the audience? I thought I saw the two Fort Hood heroes next to First Lady Obama. (According to the transcript, he did not do it in the beginning of the speech, and I don’t remember it happening at any other time.)

2. He wants to help grow America’s economy by raising taxes on those who outsource. On the one hand, he’s rewarding those who stay. However, without other incentives to stay- such as a practical tax structure- he is asking/telling them to stay out of fear, not out of the dynamic opportunities America offers businesses. This is equivalent to punching someone in the nose who leaves, and telling the rest you’ll not punch them in the face. Thus, you are doing them a favor, or so it appears. Unfortunately for America, business leaders generally aren’t stupid, and they will leave the country completely or simply find a way around the laws.

3. He promised to pay more money for education, more money for community banks to lend- the latter, mind you, out of what the big banks and lending institutions have paid back to the taxpayer- to spend money on green initiatives and to balance out the massive spending increases the Democratic Congress has put on this country in the last twelve months. How would he balance these seemingly contradictory proposals? By freezing discretionary spending for three years and “not continu[ing] tax cuts for oil companies, for investment fund managers, and for those making over $250,000 a year.” For fun, let’s see how much he cuts from trial lawyers (huge Democratic supporters) and see how much he raises on those making less than $250,000, as he did last year, breaking a campaign promise. Too, freezing discretionary is to freeze only about 18% of the budget, and he is only targeting $25 billion, a relatively paltry amount. According to MarketWatch, non-military discretionary spending is about $447 billion. Doing the math, we see he is supporting freezing about 1/18th of the discretionary budget, or approximately 5.5%. I am definitely not complaining about the effort, but why is he pretending it’s going to be enough to pay for the new programs and monies he and the Democrats have saddled us with this past year? Perhaps if he were to support real efforts to cut back spending as supported by Senator Coburn (R-OK) and Brian Riedl of The Heritage Foundation, we could begin the long road back to fiscal sanity.

4. He said “health insurance reform” again, not health care reform.

5. He called for the lifting of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. *Big Yawn* While I have yet to see enough evidence to support lifting DADT, it’s right around the 80th issue back on the list. Too, I think he announced his support for lifting it to get the same kind of energy from the base President Bush was looking for when he called for the Federal Amendment banning gay marriage in his 2006 State of the Union speech. Gays are increasingly incensed with the president, so he had to throw them something. After all, they put thousands of hours and millions of dollars towards his election, and he has pretty much ignored them since that happened, except for some of the requisite events to re-ingratiate himself with them. I don’t see, however, DADT being lifted in the next few months, what with re-election the major concern of most Democrats.

6. He supported nuclear power and offshore drilling. Yes, he still wants cap-and-trade (which won’t happen in an already-tough election year for Democrats), but supporting nuclear power and drilling was one of the few bipartisan ideas he offered, and I was both surprised and glad he supports them.

7. Actually, this might be the Lie of the Day: “That’s the leadership we are providing: engagement that advances the common security and prosperity of all people.” Given that he was ridiculed by France’s Sarkozy for being soft on Iran, ignored the protesters who were dying in Iran for quite some time, did not support the legal coup by the Honduran people and their government and military, snubbed Germany’s Merkel at the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, snubbed Britain’s Prime Minister and Queen once each and broke a missile shield contract with Poland, how can he say he is using engagement that advances the common security and prosperity of all people?

8. I was surprised at the enthusiasm and wide-ranging efforts he talked about. I thought he would be both more mild and more cognizant of the fact that his policies are unpopular and Congress is not going to take political risks right now. Will he convince politicians to be more concerned about the state of the country versus their own survival? I expect Democrats will make some noise in that area, then blame their opponents for not wanting to work together and thus continue this ridiculous and harmful cycle of politics we have in DC.

9. Chuckle of the Day: He wants people to stop campaigning and lead in Washington. Because, you know, he stopped campaigning on November 5, 2009. (As Jonah Goldberg noted today, the president brought back his old campaign manager this week to retool his message. You know, because he’s stopped campaigning.)

10. For all his talk about education, he still has not supported the DC School Voucher program.

11. Last but not least, his “jobs will,” or third stimulus in the last two years, not only won’t do anything positive but will coincide with the current stimulus, only $172 billion of which has been spent. Since we have $600 billion still to utilize, why not use that first before putting more debt on us?

12. Enough with the SOB stories. Please. Use evidence to convince us, not a story about adding 1,200 jobs, because most Americans know at least 1,201 were lost at the same time these 1,200 were brought into play. Please? Treat us like adults, not starry-eyed children. THEN you will be a president we might be able to follow.

*This was originally published at Race42012.com.