President Obama: During your campaign you stared into the eyes of 300 million Americans and lied to us repeatedly, so you will have to forgive me if I seem a little skeptical following your State of the Union address.
During your campaign you told us American troops would be out of Iraq by the end of 2009. It didn't happen. You promised the health care debate would be open and on C-Span. Then you moved it behind closed doors and cut Republicans out of the process. You promised to close Guantanamo Bay. It remains open. You made these assertions under the slogan "yes we can." As it turns out, no we can't.
It's because of these examples that I would like to go over some of the points in the State of the Union that I find problematic. Based on our current political climate, I think the economy is the logical place to begin.
"They (Americans) don't understand why it seems like bad behavior on Wall Street is rewarded, but hard work on Main Street isn't," Obama said during his address. The full text of the speech can be found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/27/state-of-the-union-2010-full-text-transcript_n_439459.html. Obama went on to say that everybody, including himself, hated the bank bailout because it rewarded failure. If the Obama administration is opposed to rewarding failure, why did it bail out these banks? Wouldn't it have been more prudent to allow them to fail in order to encourage Wall Street to avoid risky policies?
Obama next discussed his proposed fee (code for an unconstitutional tax that borders on outright thievery) on the largest banks in order to recover the cost of this bail out. I was sickened to hear the thunderous applause that greeted this statement. I was sickened to see how popular the idea of robbing from the rich and giving to the poor has become. I was sickened to realize that our government believes profit should be punished with taxes, and failure should be rewarded with bailouts.
While many banks that either did not receive or have already repaid TARP loans are being hit with this tax, the chief culprits of the financial crisis are curiously exempt. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are two government-backed lending organizations that helped the government push to make all Americans homeowners whether they could afford it or not. They have been subsisting on tax dollars for years. Oddly enough, they are not going to be punished for helping to destroy our economy or misusing tax dollars.
The second culprit getting a free pass is the Federal Reserve, the super secret organization of banks that are charged with regulating our economy and protecting it from this kind of disaster. Why isn't the Fed being held accountable for their share of blame? Why are we ignoring federal organizations that made mistakes and going after private banks that have already repaid their debts? I find this fishy at best, illegal at worst. Ben Bernanke, The Chairman of the Fed, didn't even get chewed out for all of this. Instead, the Senate reconfirmed his position on Thursday.
Later in the speech, Obama unveiled a plan that would allow graduates of college to only be required to pay 10 percent of their income per year toward their student debts. After 20 years the balance would be forgiven, and if the graduate took a job with the government he or she would be debt free after only 10 years. It disturbs me that our government, while it claims that everyone should be treated equally in the economy, is creating a system designed to put government employees 10 years ahead of regular citizens.
It baffles me that, in the same speech, someone can rave against economic inequality and fat-cat greed, and then introduce policies that put government employees head and shoulders above the people they are supposed to be serving.
Obama also talked about the importance of reducing the national debt and curtailing government spending. This occurs in the same speech that touts increased spending for health care, student loan aid and other spending projects. I'm all about reducing the national debt, but it makes me angry that Obama thinks we are stupid enough to believe he can reduce debt while dramatically increasing government spending. If Obama wants to appeal to the millions of Americans violently opposed to selling this country and its posterity into economic slavery, he should offer something more than his usual empty promises. My feelings and opinions on this speech can be summarized with this final thought. In reference to the failure of health care reform to pass Obama said, "I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people."
This to me translates as, "Silly stupid citizens, if you would only listen to me you would be willing to sign off on this disaster." According to the latest poll numbers on health care reform published by Rassmussen Reports on Jan. 22, available at http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/september_2009/health_care_reform, 61 percent of Americans want Congress to drop health care reform. It rankles me that our president has the arrogance to pursue health care reform's passage regardless of these numbers. We know exactly what health care reform will to do this county, and no amount of empty, charisma-fueled stump speeches will convince us otherwise.
Mr. President, we are tired of the lies. We are tired of your hypocrisy. We are tired of the lack of logic and fiscal sanity in our leaders. But most of all, we are tired of government attempting to take away our inalienable right to liberty by creating a massive government that controls our health care, our auto industry, our financial industry and our economy in general.
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