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silveradept"He [The President] shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." - Article II, Section III, United States Constitution.
This has turned into a yearly address, by tradition. It's not so much about the State of the Union, as is it is the recommendations for consideration. The speech is usually peppered with anecdotes of various United States citizens where they slot into the political goals of the speech. Afterwards, the Loyal Oppositiotn gives a response to the speech and the political ideas contained within. It's the closest the United States ever gets to Question Time, and even then, we don't let the backbenchers actually ask questions of the President or the ministers during the time.
Anyway, to the substance! The President's speech was divided into the following areas:
The major problem with proposals afrom the executive at this point is that he still needs a legislature that will send him what he wants. Or at least a legislature whose opposition doesn't believe that the destruction of the executive's plans is the best thing they can do. As the official response from the Opposition will show, they're not really inclined to go that way. I suspect a lot of liberals would have wanted to see more in boasts and scolds about what has been accomplished by his administration and what's been stalled becaues of the opposition, considering it is an election year and they think the President needs to make his case for re-election early and often. The wait and see approach may turn out to be more fruitful, if the continued attacks between the Republicans do the work of making the candidates appear utterly unfit.
There were, thankfully, no audible boos from the audience, nor any persons caught making statements about the veracity of the claims of the President.
The Opposition speech covered the following matters:
As an opposition speech, this was rather unconvincing. For one, those arguments have been made before, and lots of people are making the case that the government was not solely responsible for the crash and the continuing inability of workers to find work, and that the debt is a result of a skewed tax policy that favors the rich. The plans put out are mostly a rehash of the Ryan budget that lacks credibility. And the attacks about the President being a divider and trying to play to certain interests can easily be leveled in both directions.
As speeches go, really, they were both kind of duds. The virtues of cooperation were espoused in an environment that is not conducive to cooperation, and the attack response from the opposition was to rehash that which had already been done before. I would hope that our politics can do better, especially in an election year.
This has turned into a yearly address, by tradition. It's not so much about the State of the Union, as is it is the recommendations for consideration. The speech is usually peppered with anecdotes of various United States citizens where they slot into the political goals of the speech. Afterwards, the Loyal Oppositiotn gives a response to the speech and the political ideas contained within. It's the closest the United States ever gets to Question Time, and even then, we don't let the backbenchers actually ask questions of the President or the ministers during the time.
Anyway, to the substance! The President's speech was divided into the following areas:
- Boasts: The President started his speech with some boasts:
- The United States was completely out of Iraq, honorably and with Mission Accomplished.
- Osama bin Laden is dead, as are many of the officers of al-Qaeda, and the world is safer because of it.
- The United States automotive industry is doing well again, with General Motors once again on top of the world.
- Exports from the United States have will reach targets set at the beginning of this Administration well ahead of the schedule laid out for them by the President. (Assuming everything continues on its present track.)
- Scolds: After the boasts of the good stuff that's happened on his watch, the President turned his attention to the Loyal Opposition and lambasted them for their unwillingness to compromise or even work together with the Democrats on serious and necessary issues. After an extended riff on how much the military works well together and puts aside their differences and how the World War II veterans built themselves an economy and a middle class that were the envy of the world, the President talked about how the current crash was orchestrated by banks giving mortgages to hose who couldn't afford them, companies sending every manufacturing job they had overseas, and the deregulation over the last decade prevented the government from doing anything about it. Afterward, he mentioned how well the economy is doing now, thanks to reversals of those trends under his administration, and his support and bailing out of General Motors. He would return to this point near the end of the speech and call for less heat and more cooperation.
The other large scold of the night was directed at China and other governments whom the President accuses of not playing on a level field for their good, financial products, or other items in the marketplace, including the deliberate allowing of unsafe products from other countries to be exported and imported. - Plans: Having boasted of his own accomplishments and taken his opposition to task for their unwillingness to get things done, the President laid out some major ideas that he wants to see done.
- Tax code reform: Mr. Obama believes in a tax code that doesn't allow rich people and corporations to pay less in taxes than the people they employ (the "Buffet rule"), that penalizes those who offshore jobs and rewards those who keep or bring them into the United States, and that provides a minimum tax for corproations, but also lowers their rates from something very high to a more competitive rate, and that keeps tax relief for the poorer and middle class people that need it, instead of the richest people who can find them (or buy them).
- Jobs: The President wants to partner up companies and workers so that the workers get training for positions that the companies need to have filled. People get to go to work (and thus get off and stay off of unemployment compensation) and the companies get to fill their positions. He'd also like to coordinate all of those things under one agency instead of many. He also wants kids who are here illegally to be able to find citizenship options, since we've invested in them, invest more in basic research
- Education: In addition to job training for those already graduated, the President wants more money into the K-12 education system, more teacher creativity so they can not teach to the test, and to see students stay in school until they're 18 or graduated. Past that point, though, he wants to have the cost of college find some control, or he'll have their federal subsidies slashed. (For some of that, he thinks that doubling work-studt availability will help control costs.)
- Energy: The President wants to develop clean energy and jobs relating to that. Until we get to that point, though, he's okay with a lot more oil and gas drilling.
- Regulation: Red tape begone, says the President! And in doing so, we'll be able to rebuild infrastructure. At the same time, reverse the harmful deregulation of financial products that put us in this mess, and make sure there's no way this kind of problem happens again.
- Defense: Team America, World Police - just with slightly less in the military attack budget, more in the "Taking care of the vets" budget, and absolutely no change in the mentality that says we know best when it comes to who should and shouldn't get nuclear weapons.
The major problem with proposals afrom the executive at this point is that he still needs a legislature that will send him what he wants. Or at least a legislature whose opposition doesn't believe that the destruction of the executive's plans is the best thing they can do. As the official response from the Opposition will show, they're not really inclined to go that way. I suspect a lot of liberals would have wanted to see more in boasts and scolds about what has been accomplished by his administration and what's been stalled becaues of the opposition, considering it is an election year and they think the President needs to make his case for re-election early and often. The wait and see approach may turn out to be more fruitful, if the continued attacks between the Republicans do the work of making the candidates appear utterly unfit.
There were, thankfully, no audible boos from the audience, nor any persons caught making statements about the veracity of the claims of the President.
The Opposition speech covered the following matters:
- Blame: "The President's policies have failed" because there are a lot of people still unemployed, despire the stimulus spending. The borrowing for the stimulus plunges the country into a bigger amount of debt, which only makes the economy more fragile and leads the United States down the paths of European governments that are collapsing under their own debt. And because the President Hates Businesspeople, the greatest thing to drive economic recovery sits untapped, fettered by the demands of environmental extremists and other liberals.
- Plans (but not that specific): Mr. Daniels says that loopholes should be eliminated, taxes lowered, domestic energy exploited, Social Security and Medicare "reformed" so as to be a program the only poor people get and the government always defer to the private sector. Details, if pressed, are always a bit sketchy.
- Attack: After blame and gestures toward some sort of grand plan, Mr. Daniels claims the President's agenda is to divide people among their various ethnicities, social classes, and other divisive classes, while the Republicans speak the language of unity and patriotism (QUILTBAG people and non-Christians need not apply, of course.) The other main line of attack is that the President, as a Democrat, believes that government is the solution to all problems and wants to expand government to the point of crushing everyone's freedom.
As an opposition speech, this was rather unconvincing. For one, those arguments have been made before, and lots of people are making the case that the government was not solely responsible for the crash and the continuing inability of workers to find work, and that the debt is a result of a skewed tax policy that favors the rich. The plans put out are mostly a rehash of the Ryan budget that lacks credibility. And the attacks about the President being a divider and trying to play to certain interests can easily be leveled in both directions.
As speeches go, really, they were both kind of duds. The virtues of cooperation were espoused in an environment that is not conducive to cooperation, and the attack response from the opposition was to rehash that which had already been done before. I would hope that our politics can do better, especially in an election year.
