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silveradept"He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." In this case, Barack Obama spoke of the need to return the United States to competitiveness in the world economy, through giving education the priority it deserves, investing in infrastructure, encouraging innovation, and make sensible changes to government where there is unnecessary complication. After that speech was given, the Opposition gave their response, proclaiming their great priority to be the reduction of expenditures from government, including repealing a popular health care plan. They also claimed to be the advocates of limited government. If you watch the video, as best I can tell, Representative Ryan's TelePrompTer or cue cards were not on good synchronization with his cadence, as emphasis and pauses appear in a lot of wrong places. Past that, one of the official Tea Party voices gave her response to the speech, taking the idea of runaway spending and bloated government and running with it, accusing this administration of doing most of the bloat, and offering suggestions on how to trim it - repealing health care, getting rid of the EPA, and rolling back lots of regulation. If you watch that video, apparently there were two cameras in the room recording, and the one more people saw was not the one the address was being delivered to. For those outside the chamber of Congress, The President of the Libertarian Party accuses the administration of hypocrisy on the Land Wars in Asia, spoke of the need to reduce military spending as well as discretionary spending, accused Congressman Ryan and the Republicans of being hypocrites on actual spending cuts for the last few years, and indicated that the truth needs to be told about entitlements - too much promised, now come the cuts - and boasted that actual libertarians would do the cuts that everyone else is merely willing to talk about doing.
Those were the official responses - the unofficial ones arrive in the columns, and they have lots of range. Mr. Gerwitz is mostly disappointed in the speech, including not much actual tangible stuff on the technology front, while Mr. Henninger believes that the President continued to display an obsession with things that Don't Work to make jobs, like rail systems and solar panels. Mr. Dowd sees no shift at all from Barack Obama of 2009, supposedly stern about spending, through Barack Obama of 2010, touting all the spending he did, to Barack Obama of 2011, now back to supposed spending discipline, because Barack Obama just keeps thinking that government "investment" can work, which is anathema to all those who venerate at the altar of The Market (A.P.T.I.N.) You can hear that strain loud and clear through the reactions penned and highlighted from Heritage, unsubtle and unashamed of that position. Mr. Nugent hedges his outright skepticism slightly, giving the President the benefit of the doubt on some things that might accomplish ends he favors, but it's mostly the same. Which leaves it to Mr. Stossel to articulate the libertarian end, proposing the closing of several major departments, repealing the health care bill, removing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, privatizing entitlement programs, and generally requiring two laws be repealed for each one passed, so that the private sector can stop feeling "uncertain" and start reinvesting their capital.
In a lot of ways, this address looks a lot like what politics has been for the last two years. The President tries to get people to sign on to a grand vision of sparkles, innovation, and economic power, only to find his opposition firmly entrenched in the idea that they should get everything they want, exactly how they want it, before they'll consider anything that he has in mind that might also help solve the problems they're fixating on.
Will Republicans work with Democrats to elevate teachers to the levels that the address said they should be at? Or will they carp about the power of teachers' unions, claiming that they produce overpaid and underqualified teachers who can't be fired for sucking, and then advocate instead for flight from public schools to private schools that don't have unionized instructors? Will they perpatuate the lottery system that says some students in a disadvantaged area will get good education by being sent somewhere adequately funded and enthusiastic about learning, or will they look for ways to make all the schools just as good, no matter whether someone lives in the ghetto or in the gated communities? Will teachers actually get respect, or will they get the Grandchild of No Child Left Behind, the Son of Race To The Top?
For being about jobs and the deficit, the Republicans have spent an awful lot of time so far on things like health care and abortion and other social issues. One would think they would have a budget proposal ready to be examined, or a more numbers-full plan on what they want to cut, right out of the gate, and be ready to justify it when the people who are getting cut complain about losing their slice of the pie. One would think they would be less about finding and extending tax breaks for the wealthiest and more about shoring up revenues while cutting spending. Which might mean tax increases on the profits of corporations, shock and horror. One would think they would have serious plans on how to make health care affordable, ensure the orderly retirement and pension of those who have put their time in, and to check the influence of "let's build bigger hammers" thinking. One would think they should have plans for both short-term means of keeping energy costs down and long-term plans for finding and moving the country over to energy that will be cheap over time and have minimal impact on other resources.
Remarkably, it seems that the libertarian perspective is the one that has concrete plans with numbers attached. They're also fairly extreme in their choices and how far to go with them, but it's much easier to work out compromises or to build something when the people you have to build with have blueprints of their own to make comparisons to.
It's a perfunctory thing to say "The State of Our Union Is Strong" in the speech, either as an opening or closing remark, regardless of what the reality is. In this particular case, I think we had a great case for saying, "The State of Our Union is Fragile" or even going so far as to say "The State of Our Union is Weak", with the unemployment issues, the foreclosure issues, the infrastructure issues, the education issues, and the government paralyzed by the opposition issues. There were a lot of reasons for the perfunctory statement to have been changed to make a point.
Perhaps my plea and the President's pleas are not too apart after all - get off your asses and do something. Prove to us that you have a plan and are working toward it. Make legislation that's not reactionary to something else, or a retread of an issue that's already been fought that provides nothing new to the discussion. Stop being the gods-be-damned Party of No, of inaction, and start taking part in the government. Dragging you around as dead weight makes it tough to do anything at all. And while that may suit the people at the top, who want their good times to continue without end, the people who matter, the ones who are still suffering the recession, those whose jobs are being mercilessly outsourced, the people who are probably most afraid of places like China becoming the dominant player in the world economy, they're the kinds of people who not only will say "Throw the bums out!", but eventually, "Water the tree of liberty."
It's your choice. Whether you truly believe in American Exceptionalism and want to make the United States the bestest at everything, or whether you want the country to hold together for some time longer so you can keep looting it without fear that the plebes will rise up and destroy you, things have to improve. At the very least, we have to have bread and circuses. If we can't even get to bread and circuses, it's going to be an ugly ride.
Not that the President is blameless. But he and his party are at least disposed to action at this point, so they get a little slack - enough that we'll criticize the choices being made, but at least be happy that someone's choosing.
Those were the official responses - the unofficial ones arrive in the columns, and they have lots of range. Mr. Gerwitz is mostly disappointed in the speech, including not much actual tangible stuff on the technology front, while Mr. Henninger believes that the President continued to display an obsession with things that Don't Work to make jobs, like rail systems and solar panels. Mr. Dowd sees no shift at all from Barack Obama of 2009, supposedly stern about spending, through Barack Obama of 2010, touting all the spending he did, to Barack Obama of 2011, now back to supposed spending discipline, because Barack Obama just keeps thinking that government "investment" can work, which is anathema to all those who venerate at the altar of The Market (A.P.T.I.N.) You can hear that strain loud and clear through the reactions penned and highlighted from Heritage, unsubtle and unashamed of that position. Mr. Nugent hedges his outright skepticism slightly, giving the President the benefit of the doubt on some things that might accomplish ends he favors, but it's mostly the same. Which leaves it to Mr. Stossel to articulate the libertarian end, proposing the closing of several major departments, repealing the health care bill, removing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, privatizing entitlement programs, and generally requiring two laws be repealed for each one passed, so that the private sector can stop feeling "uncertain" and start reinvesting their capital.
In a lot of ways, this address looks a lot like what politics has been for the last two years. The President tries to get people to sign on to a grand vision of sparkles, innovation, and economic power, only to find his opposition firmly entrenched in the idea that they should get everything they want, exactly how they want it, before they'll consider anything that he has in mind that might also help solve the problems they're fixating on.
Will Republicans work with Democrats to elevate teachers to the levels that the address said they should be at? Or will they carp about the power of teachers' unions, claiming that they produce overpaid and underqualified teachers who can't be fired for sucking, and then advocate instead for flight from public schools to private schools that don't have unionized instructors? Will they perpatuate the lottery system that says some students in a disadvantaged area will get good education by being sent somewhere adequately funded and enthusiastic about learning, or will they look for ways to make all the schools just as good, no matter whether someone lives in the ghetto or in the gated communities? Will teachers actually get respect, or will they get the Grandchild of No Child Left Behind, the Son of Race To The Top?
For being about jobs and the deficit, the Republicans have spent an awful lot of time so far on things like health care and abortion and other social issues. One would think they would have a budget proposal ready to be examined, or a more numbers-full plan on what they want to cut, right out of the gate, and be ready to justify it when the people who are getting cut complain about losing their slice of the pie. One would think they would be less about finding and extending tax breaks for the wealthiest and more about shoring up revenues while cutting spending. Which might mean tax increases on the profits of corporations, shock and horror. One would think they would have serious plans on how to make health care affordable, ensure the orderly retirement and pension of those who have put their time in, and to check the influence of "let's build bigger hammers" thinking. One would think they should have plans for both short-term means of keeping energy costs down and long-term plans for finding and moving the country over to energy that will be cheap over time and have minimal impact on other resources.
Remarkably, it seems that the libertarian perspective is the one that has concrete plans with numbers attached. They're also fairly extreme in their choices and how far to go with them, but it's much easier to work out compromises or to build something when the people you have to build with have blueprints of their own to make comparisons to.
It's a perfunctory thing to say "The State of Our Union Is Strong" in the speech, either as an opening or closing remark, regardless of what the reality is. In this particular case, I think we had a great case for saying, "The State of Our Union is Fragile" or even going so far as to say "The State of Our Union is Weak", with the unemployment issues, the foreclosure issues, the infrastructure issues, the education issues, and the government paralyzed by the opposition issues. There were a lot of reasons for the perfunctory statement to have been changed to make a point.
Perhaps my plea and the President's pleas are not too apart after all - get off your asses and do something. Prove to us that you have a plan and are working toward it. Make legislation that's not reactionary to something else, or a retread of an issue that's already been fought that provides nothing new to the discussion. Stop being the gods-be-damned Party of No, of inaction, and start taking part in the government. Dragging you around as dead weight makes it tough to do anything at all. And while that may suit the people at the top, who want their good times to continue without end, the people who matter, the ones who are still suffering the recession, those whose jobs are being mercilessly outsourced, the people who are probably most afraid of places like China becoming the dominant player in the world economy, they're the kinds of people who not only will say "Throw the bums out!", but eventually, "Water the tree of liberty."
It's your choice. Whether you truly believe in American Exceptionalism and want to make the United States the bestest at everything, or whether you want the country to hold together for some time longer so you can keep looting it without fear that the plebes will rise up and destroy you, things have to improve. At the very least, we have to have bread and circuses. If we can't even get to bread and circuses, it's going to be an ugly ride.
Not that the President is blameless. But he and his party are at least disposed to action at this point, so they get a little slack - enough that we'll criticize the choices being made, but at least be happy that someone's choosing.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 03:11 am (UTC)I think Jimmy Carter proved this.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 05:53 am (UTC)