The US Capital
The first Presidential Address by the new President Barrack Obama posed more questions than it answered among pundits of politics and economics. True, his richly delivered speech proclaimed on the grand scale many have come to expect from an Obama Speech. He is a good when it comes to such aural events as this. But his first trip to the Rotunda as Commander and Cheif was All Pop and Fizzle.
I have heard all of The Presidents’ speech at least twice. The phrase that comes to the forefront of my mind is that Talk is Cheap!
He tried to convince the American people that only those with a legitimate hard luck story would get help from our tax dollars. Many within his own administration don’t believe this.
The Speech to the Nation - POP
Just a few of the talking points in his speech that caused stirring among pundits and disbelief from others were quoted as such:
- “We have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages. It’s a plan that won’t help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values.”
- “We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before.”
- “We have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade.”
- “Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.”
- We’ll reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use.
The Fizzle
This all sounds great, but as I said, Talk is cheap.
For starters: The housing plan, is among economic pundits a bad plan where the math doesn’t work. I have covered this recently here. “It’s a plan that won’t help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford”, to that FoxNews found a little tidbit of static for The Presidents clear and concise plan. It’s not likely aid will be denied to all homeowners who overstated their income or assets to get a mortgage they couldn’t afford said officials from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. suggested this month. Also from a Fox News article, Sheila Bair told National Public Radio,”I think it’s just simply impractical to try to do a forensic analysis of each and every one of these delinquent loans.”
His plan for energy independence relies completely on renewable alternative energy and totally ignores the opportunities for off-shore drilling that are the quickest and most obvious course of action to reduce our need for foreign oil. Clearly a short coming in the plan as a viable renewable source is decades away from being able to replace our entire energy infrastructure. This fact alone renders his plan ineffective.
“We have already identified $2 Trillion in savings over the next decade,” this whole statement is a ploy. It says I’m going to do “X” but it won’t actually happen until I am out of office. This allows him to take credit for future achievements and deflect blame if the plan fails onto his successor. By the way, every president pulls that one, not just Barrack Obama.
The blaming of deregulation by the Bush administration causing Wall Streets banking woes as stated by President Obama in many speeches and implied in his Presidential Address, fails to point out that it was his democrat predecessor who forced banks to allow mortgages without proof of income, credibility, or even a social security number. This allowed illegal aliens to buy homes in a country they have no right to be in in the first place.
He wants to eliminate “Cold War era weapons system we no longer use? Hmm, I certainly hope he waits until we have some newer ones first because in case he wasn’t paying attention, he sent another 17,000 troops to Afghanistan with Cold War era Weapons and Equipment. I must point out that The Clinton Administration made broad cuts to our military in his eight years and when we were attacked on September 11th of 2001 by Islamo-fascists, it cost Hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild our forces which contributed greatly to our national deficit.
Whether we fought in Afghanistan or Iraq our military needed to be rebuilt to pre-Clinton era levels to fight the war effevtively.
Last but not least my favorite part was the crap storm he created when he said, “I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.” News flash Mr. President this nation didn’t invent the automobile, Karl Benz of Germany invented the first automobile with a gasoline enginge in it, we made it affordable for the average citizen to own. That thanks goes to Henry Fords assembly line idea.
In a nutshell Obamas’ Pop and Fizzle Speech did little to shine on this Cracked World.
Wow! Amazing. You actually picked the five things that had me throwing things at my TV last night! LOL. No kidding.
I was waiting for him to expound further on his comment about foreign oil dependence - but - I knew where he was going anyway - he just left it out there. We have decades worth of oil, gas, and coal available under our territories that would keep us energy independent while we work towards more sustainable sources - but - the bum refuses to open it up.
I knew exactly where he was headed when he started in on the policies of the past (but we’re not going to talk about those) - the only problem is that he refused to acknowledge that it was the CRA and Clinton that laxed the lending laws that really headed us down that path. He refused to acknowledge that it was Greenspan who left the rates at unusually low levels for years that helped cause the bubble. The only bright spot out of that segment was when he was mentioning the failed policies of the mortgage industry the camera was panned on to Chris Dodd. LOL.
I found myself swearing quite a bit through that speech. He’s so full of it that it just drives me nuts.
The thing about all of the energy resources we are sitting on is the jobs it would create if we just used them. THAT should have been in the stimulus plan, but all those granola bars in the land of fruits and nuts will do anything to obstruct progress.
I think it would be appropriate for the republicans to show up next year wearing hip waders. It was getting deep in the halls of congress.