Obama gives a speech we can’t take seriously
How do you take seriously a speech in which the president says we will spend more money on educating students, rebuilding our infrastructure and funding research for innovation in alternative energy sources — all while saying we’re not going to spend more money?
How do you take seriously a speech in which the only budgetary dollar figure the president gives is a made-up one — a reduction in spending (even as spending is frozen, remember) as compared only to hypothetical future budgets?
How do you take seriously a speech in which the president claims the mantle of fiscal restraint — while essentially bidding to make permanent the supposedly temporary, stimulus-inflated levels of spending we’ve seen the last two years?
How do you take seriously a speech in which the president says he will work more closely with Republicans — by making the same offers he has made, but not acted on, in previous speeches? (Examples: “If you have ideas about how to improve [the health-reform] law…I am eager to work with you,” and, “I’m willing to look at other ideas to bring down costs, including one that Republicans suggested last year: medical malpractice reform to rein in frivolous lawsuits” [my emphasis, because he's admitting he didn't act on it when they proposed it before].)
How do you take seriously a speech in which the president acknowledges that his own fiscal-reform commission said “the only way to tackle our deficit is to cut excessive spending wherever we find it” — and then essentially rules out cutting spending in entitlements?
Given all this, how do you take seriously those parts of the speech that did offer pleasant surprises — his calls to flatten and lower corporate income-tax rates, to simplify individual income taxes (note that he didn’t offer to simplify and then lower rates), to merge and consolidate duplicative federal agencies, and to veto any bill with earmarks?
Seriously — how?
The next two years are going to be even harder than I thought.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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169 comments Add your comment
dougmo2
January 26th, 2011
5:19 am
Does anyone with half a brain take Obama seriously?
arnold
January 26th, 2011
5:34 am
Does anyone with half a brain take Kyle Wingate seriously?
Joel Edge
January 26th, 2011
6:11 am
It was a reelection speech.
Drifter
January 26th, 2011
6:21 am
No more seriously than I can take the GOP after what they did during the Bush years while claiming to be fiscal conservatives.
DeborahinAthens
January 26th, 2011
6:42 am
When I hear the Repugs say they will repeal Medicare Part D, the most expensive entitlement ever shoved down out throats by Dubya, which benefits only the drug companies, I will be a believer. Ain’t gonna happen.
Cutty
January 26th, 2011
6:52 am
Wingfield disagrees with Obama. Nothing new there.
The Right Brothers
January 26th, 2011
6:56 am
Ryan, in typical compassionate conservative Republican fashion, was pulling his “facts” out of his rump in that long-since rebutted rebuttal of his last night. The former aide needs to return to doing what he did best, in a former “career”. Someone needs to give this guy, Ryan, some new material.
TrickleDownStupid
January 26th, 2011
7:03 am
We already know that we can NOT take the republicans or the tea party seriously; heck they believe that all of our problems started the moment President Obama took office. FYI…it didn’t and anyone “with a BRAIN” knows it.
Also, it’s a good thing that the people who were assaulted in Tucson, AZ have medical insurance, because they would have serious medical bills to pay that were NOT their FAULT. I would hate to think what would happen to anyone who did not have medical insurance. That’s what I think about the healthcare debate.
Ragnar Danneskjöld
January 26th, 2011
7:21 am
Good morning all. Skipped the speech,and after reading the pundits, glad i did. Chauncey being Chauncey. Call it the Seinfeld presidency. Walter Williams has a good essay this morning – if we abolished all military spending we’d still have a half trillion dollar deficit this year. The dems were lousy stewards over the past four years, seemingly the worst in history.
Drifter
January 26th, 2011
7:24 am
Lousy stewards indeed…probably because they were trying to one-up the lousy GOP stewards before them.
Aquagirl
January 26th, 2011
7:35 am
Hmmmm….Repeal Medicare D, don’t launch stupid and expensive wars, re-work the financial system so Wall Street can’t rob us blind and then hold us hostage for bailouts, don’t base our economy on housing speculation. That should go a long way.
Seriously Kyle, would you rather Obama take the G.W. Bush approach, pandering for votes doing the above crap while bashing Democrats as fiscally irresponsible socialists? At least Obama proposes investments that could pay off for America’s future generations, not just people who will keep him in power.
Silverchief
January 26th, 2011
7:35 am
Obozo is an idiot !!!!! Ryan in 2012 !!!!
clanmack
January 26th, 2011
7:45 am
RE: Medical care for the Tucson victims. It would be instructive if the medical care payments for Rep Giffords were to be published. How does her medical insurance work? Who pays for it? What are the deductibles? Is any of the care outside of the coverage limits? Does the total coverage amount exceed “lifetime care” limits. How about the same items for the other survivors? I want to see an analysis of these items before and with the President’s Health Care Reform, AND once the Republicans have “repealed”. It would be enlightening to see this all laid out in plain language. I am tired of all the opinion based on second, third and fourth hand information. Let’s get real and see what is what with first hand information.
The Right Brothers
January 26th, 2011
7:52 am
Don’t you know that medical insurance would just be so affordable if only doctors that cut off the wrong body part, etc., could practice without fear of frivilous lawsuits. Brilliant, Kyle. You got any more good cost-saving techniques that you would like to share. How about some home remedies. You got a recipe for penicillin.
Obama is an empty suit
January 26th, 2011
8:10 am
You nailed it. His speech contained lots of vague nicities that will never come to pass. Since he can’t lead, he needs to get out of the way in 2012 and let someone else give it a go. Congrats on having your article posted on realclearpolitics.com, by the way. A local boy done good!
fair and imbalanced
January 26th, 2011
8:11 am
Wingfield took the Party oath while studying for his GED.
farmer ted
January 26th, 2011
8:12 am
Did I misunderstand Bachmann? I thought I heard her say, Bush left office with the debt at 10 trillion and Obama added another 3 trillion. If so, conservatives got some explaining to do.
nativeson71
January 26th, 2011
8:14 am
“Win the Future!”
Is this like Bush’s, “Stay the course?”
Gmason
January 26th, 2011
8:17 am
After watching last night, I have come to the conclusion that Obama is schizophrenic. Infrastructure, blah, blah, blah – isn’t that what the “stimulus” money was supposed to be used on? What happened to that?
It was as if he had been in a coma for the last two years and had no idea what has happened in the interim, woke up and gave the same speech he gave two years ago.
Paul
January 26th, 2011
8:18 am
“Win the Future” is the title of Newt Gingrich’s book. I know the president wanted to move to the right but come on – stealing Newt’s words?
USMc dawg
January 26th, 2011
8:20 am
Obama is an EMPTY suit. This SOTU was merely “window dressing” for a RE-election campaign kickoff speech.
What the Heck has Obama done for the last two years regarding the deficit and out of control spending? NOTHING!
He is worse than just a weak leader; he is dishonest, conniving, and Sly.
And did I mention UNQUALIFIED?
farmer ted
January 26th, 2011
8:21 am
bachmann is palin on blotter acid.
bob
January 26th, 2011
8:26 am
Deb in Athens, where do you get your stats ? The precription drug plan will cost more than medicare itself ?
old timer
January 26th, 2011
8:27 am
Empty suit…empty words
bob
January 26th, 2011
8:28 am
Obama ran on reducing spending, he increased spending, now he is running on reducing spending.
Joel Edge
January 26th, 2011
8:32 am
It was a nice speech. It apparently made nobody happy.
Some of us weren’t happy with the spending in the Bush years. Even unhappier before with the bi-partisan sell out of American jobs in the Clinton years. With vague promises of jobs to come. After two years of Obama and the same kind of spending and even more promises of green jobs and jobs from exports. We seem to keep falling for the same promises.
But y’all just keep arguing amongst yourselves.
Fed Up
January 26th, 2011
8:33 am
Well, the president said exactly what I expected he would say. NOTHING. We have what’s worse than a lame duck president….an idiot in the White House. Ya still liking that change guys? I think we should stop paying every country in the world billions of dollars in aid and concentrate that money on balancing our budget. Billions to Egypt who has become 90% muslim and working hard everyday on how to slit our throats? Get real.
Close our borders and tax every illegal in our country and STOP giving them free medical care, food and housing and see how many stay. Americans are getting the short end of the stick and it’s time we stood up and took back our house. We are allowed to shoot someone breaking into our house, why not push that law to our borders?
A Hearty Cheese Sauce
January 26th, 2011
8:34 am
At least Obama is being successful in some areas while all you naysayers are poo-pooing him. I predict Obama will be the most Mediocre President of all time.
get out much?
January 26th, 2011
8:35 am
well, at least he did not talk about going to Mars.
Joel Edge
January 26th, 2011
8:36 am
And someone has noticed it sounds a lot like Bush’s 2006 speech.
Fed Up
January 26th, 2011
8:36 am
The only thing Obama is successful at is taking multi-million dollar vacations on our tax dollars. The man is a pro at that.
DebbieDoRight
January 26th, 2011
8:38 am
Wow Kyle — it took you repugnants exactly what……….???……….30 minutes after the SOU speech to kill all that “bi-partisianship” talk huh? Is that a record?
Peter
January 26th, 2011
8:39 am
Poor Kyle no vision……..
I guess it is hard to take the Republican Seriously when they say they want to cut the deficit after Bush and his gang ran us so far into the red, we had tarp, bailouts, and needed Billions of spending, so we would not have a second Great Depression.
I guess Kyle is all for Governing like in our state of Georgia……for instance the leaving Republican governor buys property this year, and was willing to spend more as he left office, then what the value of it was two years ago.
Amazing …..the Georgia tax payers have purchased the only land that went up in value perhaps in the entire country.
Kyle didn’t you say you own a house in Buckhead you could have never afforded without the housing crisis ?
The former governor cut education, but created a $25 million Fish farm.
We elected a new Republican Governor who lied to the State about his personal finances.
We have the Tea Party who spend 1 billion dollars on ear marks, while telling us they want to cut spending to the bone.
Kyle…..no vision from you and the Republican’s but plenty of lies to go around, kind of like fees that were collect to help the environment and then spend other places, or the GA 400 toll road.
What is your vision or the Republican’s Vision that America can take seriously ?
Cut education ? Less regulations so we have another financial crisis ? Let the rich get richer and the poor get poorer as the IRS has been reporting in every year we had Bush ?
Mission Accomplished …… The bilking of the treasury with cost plus contracts ?
Jeff W
January 26th, 2011
8:39 am
I don’t know. I’d like to know how the Iraq War or tax cuts for the rich are going to pay for themselves when they never have. Oh, and how is Medicare Part D not socialisam, tyranny, and the destruction of all freedoms(every government dollar spent leads to the destruction of liberty according to CONs)
Charles X
January 26th, 2011
8:40 am
Kyle, is this the first time you’ve noticed this? I’m just wondering, because he’s done this kind of thing since day one.
Peter
January 26th, 2011
8:41 am
The vision is Obama for the next 6 years…that is the vision Kyle and the rest of the do nothing Republican’s are afraid of !
Good Grief
January 26th, 2011
8:42 am
A Few Points to Kyle’s Blog and some readers reactions:
1. Yeah, Bush left office with a $10 trillion deficit, but there was a deficit when he took office. We weren’t exactly on the plus side of the ledger when GWB started. The fact remains that Obama’s administration and congrress have added a little more than $3 trillion to the debt in two years, while it took Bush eight years to run up around $5 or $6 trillion. Still bad numbers.
2. There is a rather large contingent of Republicans and Tea Partiers out there who know that these problems go way back, and it’s not all Obama’s fault. Our problem, as Jeff Foxworthy once stated, is that we “can’t keep the most ignorant amongst us from off the TV.” Then again, there was a loud group of liberals who seem to think that our nation was absolutely fine when Clinton was in office, but somehow, the day Bush took over, we went to hell in a handbasket.
3. Is anyone else bothered by the fact that we’re still 22 months away from the next Presidential election and already Obama is priming the pump for his campaign? (Are we still allowed to use the word “campaign?” It seems like a violent, uncivil term considering the times we live in.)
4. “Win the Future” has been around for some time as a Republican talking point. I think Gingrich used it for a book, and a GOP-support in Oregon has websites for ir. Odd that a Democrat would be co-opting the phrase.
5. The State of the Union address would probably be watchable if it weren’t for the half-hour of self-congratulatory, self-aggrandizing showboating that takes place before.
A Hearty Cheese Sauce
January 26th, 2011
8:46 am
Its so much fun watching OFumble, studder, stammer and try to con his way out of the mess he has made. What a LOSER!!
Face it kiddos…ObaManure is goin down in flames.
TrickleDownStupid
January 26th, 2011
8:48 am
The republicans and tea party members have not provided a specific idea or any details to what their plans are for this country.
They are just a group of cry babies; now is your chance to do two things: (1.) Help the economy or (2) Continue to whine about what the democrats are not doing or will not let you do.
I expect them to sell us the story that ” Now it will take time for the economy to improve” or jobs prospect to grow.
Also, as I saw my 401K plan decline over the last few years; I thought about what Social Security would look like if we had been allowed to invest the money in the stock market. So, I say NO to Mr. Ryans suggestion that we invest SS; I believe that we should continue to contribute into both and hopefully we can all have a middle class retirement or better.
The republicans and tea party members will continue on their quest to Trickle Down Stupid.
DebbieDoRight
January 26th, 2011
8:48 am
bob: Deb in Athens, where do you get your stats ? The precription drug plan will cost more than medicare itself ?
Wow bob (small “b”) — read any papers in the past SIX YEARS? Duh!!
Gerald Ford
January 26th, 2011
8:48 am
My fellow Americans. We shall soon awaken from this long National nightmare.
Steveo84
January 26th, 2011
8:48 am
The Republicans added something like 123 amendments to the healthcare bill. Sounds like bipartisan to me, even if they didn’t vote fore it in the end.
Steveo84
January 26th, 2011
8:50 am
Also, one can take this speech seriously because Reagan and both Bushes did the same thing – promise smaller government and smaller government bills year after year while letting government grow and budgets hit the stratosphere.
DebbieDoRight
January 26th, 2011
8:50 am
Amanda G – I think you have Obama confused with you during your “lost” middle school years……Meth will do that to you I’ve heard.
Here Spot
January 26th, 2011
8:50 am
“Also, as I saw my 401K plan decline over the last few years”
Well either you are lying or a very much uninformed investor. I suggest you begin putting your Nose full of nickels under your mattress.
Charlie
January 26th, 2011
8:51 am
Last night’s SOTU showed the folly of the liberal agenda to anyone who reflects beneath Obama’s surface patina. My favorite example, we simply MUST do better in science and math education. There are already more than 100 separate federal programs devoted to science and math education, so, hey, let’s add more! Why not find just one, that actually accomplishes something? Or, even better, get the federal government out of the picture and let states innovate?
John
January 26th, 2011
8:51 am
President Obama’s speech was certainly better than the doom and gloom, fear mongering speech given by Paul Ryan or the one given by Michele Bachmann. Ms. Bachmann, the Constitutionalist, called on the President to sign a balanced-budget amendment. Does she now know how our Constitution is amended? The president has no role in amending the Constitution.
carlosgvv
January 26th, 2011
8:51 am
Kyle, experience should tell you to take a State of the Union address about as seriously as a Party platform at a convention.
Peter
January 26th, 2011
8:53 am
The Republican vision fro Georgia….less education, a Fish Farm….and Praying for rain !
Here Spot
January 26th, 2011
8:54 am
Obama reminds of a Donkey Pinata.