Friday, January 29, 2010

Fun And Frivolity: He Shoots, He Scores! (No Way!)

Remember when I posted that college prank where an unsuspecting victim supposedly won half a million dollars after making a blindfolded half court shot? The crowd was in on it, and went nuts at just the right moment as if he'd made it...priceless!

Well, a high school right here in KC tried to prank one of their teachers, Joel Branstrom, the same way -- with NCAA Final Four tickets on the line -- but it turned out just a wee bit differently:



Apparently, the teacher (who was also the girls basketball coach) suspected a pie in the face, which is why he held the ball up in front of him for a moment before shooting.

Of course, the students never considered the fact that he might make the shot, so there were no Final Four tickets; in the end, the students felt so guilty that they ended up buying him a gift certificate to a local restaurant. Branstrom was a great sport, however, and was very gracious about the whole thing.

But wait, that's not all...!

As the video hit the Internet and thousands of people saw it, major sports shows picked it up, too. Pretty soon, offers began trickling in from people willing to donate Final Four tickets to reward the prank-gone-wrong. Finally, the NCAA itself got involved and made the offer official - Branstrom, his wife, and his four children were given tickets, lodging, and transportation for the entire weekend.

Kudos to the NCAA for stepping up to the plate for such an amazing feat, and congrats to Coach Branstrom!

Have a great weekend!

Staggering Debt

Heritage has the analysis:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today released a ten-year budget baseline showing $6 trillion in deficits over the next decade. Yet because Congress requires the CBO to include all sorts of unrealistic assumptions (that all tax cuts will expire, that the AMT will never again be patched, that discretionary spending will barely move for a decade), some adjustments must be made.

After building a true budget baseline, the sobering result shows ten-year deficits of $13 trillion. The annual budget deficit never falls below $1 trillion. By 2019, the debt is projected at $22 trillion, or 98 percent of GDP.
In short, that means that of every penny of productivity (goods and services) that the U.S. generates each year, we will owe $.98 out of every dollar to someone else. Just think of it as economic servitude, if you will.

And it's all because of the spending.

Let's be fair - the entire U.S. government has been recklessly and irresponsibly spending for decades. The budget was actually balanced in the mid-1990s by Bill Clinton and the Republican-led Congress, but the deficit was still huge, so our debt load remained. In fact, I haven't been able to find anywhere the last time the U.S. was debt free. I'm guessing it was long before 1900 (if anyone is able to clarify that, I'd love to hear about it). The point is that this is a long-term systemic problem that very few politicians have been willing to tackle, and that none have actually corrected.

But, let's also be real - Barack Obama and the Democrat-led Congress dumped gasoline onto the fire. Remember, Bush's tax cuts had actually brought the deficit down to under $200 billion, heading us in the right direction despite increased spending...until the housing meltdown at the end of 2008:

From that point on, it's been a spending binge of historic proportions. Remember this:


No, it's a destructive irresponsibility that we're seeing now. Heritage gives us another chart that shows how the annual budget affects the deficit:



We're looking down the barrel of permanent $1 trillion deficits each year.

Okay, real world time. This would be like someone earning $50k a year racking up a mountain of credit card debt, adding an additional $25k each year. Let's say that after doing that for a couple of decades, this person is going to be somewhere around $1 million in debt. Can he pay it all back? It'll be painful, and require some serious cutbacks in all areas of his life, but at least he can start getting his house in order and start making some progress. However, instead of cutting back on his spending, let's say this person would then start adding $40k in additional debt each year, blowing out the bottom of the hole he's already in. Ask yourself: how long do you think his lenders will let him run wild? How long will it be before the bank comes calling, and this guy is forcefully thrown into financial ruin?

It will work the same way for us as a nation.

Here's the sobering truth:
The numbers are truly staggering. Between 2009 and 2020, the national debt would increase by $130,000 per household. By 2020, net interest alone would cost $1 trillion – one-quarter of all tax revenues. Federal spending would reach 25.9 percent of GDP, shattering the post-war record. And these estimates do not include the cost of the president’s health-care and cap-and-trade proposals. His spending agenda — which would be unaffordable even in good budget times — is completely unrealistic given this sea of red ink.
Basically, the children of today will become the serfs of tomorrow. This is absurdly unsustainable unless we're content with destroying all hopes of a lifestyle like we've known for our younger generations. This is no exaggeration.

Here are a few other fun facts:
  • Context: Before 2009, the largest budget deficit recorded since the end of World War II had been 6.0 percent of GDP in 1983. The Bush Administration oversaw budget deficits averaging 3.2 percent of GDP.
  • The 2009 budget deficit of 9.9 percent of GDP shattered the postwar record. Furthermore, the budget deficit is projected to remain above 5.8 percent of GDP indefinitely.
  • By 2020, the budget forecasts a $1.9 trillion annual budget deficit, a public debt of 98 percent of GDP, and annual net interest spending surpassing $1 trillion.
  • Over what would be President Obama's eight years in office, baseline budget deficits are projected to total $9.7 trillion--nearly triple the $3.3 trillion in deficits accumulated by President George W. Bush.[6] The public debt--7.5 trillion at the end of 2009--is projected to triple to $22.1 trillion by 2020.
  • After remaining between 23 and 49 percent of GDP since the end of World War II, the public debt currently stands at 53 percent of GDP and is projected to reach a peacetime-record 98 percent by 2020.
  • As the budget deficit increases over the next decade, so will net interest spending, from $187 billion (1.3 percent of GDP) in 2009 to $1,044 billion (4.6 percent of GDP) by 2020. Even that assumes that interest rates remain lower than in the 1990s. An interest rate spike could cost trillions of dollars in additional net interest costs.[7]
  • The coming tsunami of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs are projected to push the federal public debt to more than 300 percent of GDP by 2050 and over 700 percent of GDP by 2080.[8]
With individual debt, those holding the purse strings call the shots, and are likely to work with you because they want their money back more than they want retribution. But, at some point, they are going to lose patience, and punishment will be in order. You will be forced to do some unpleasant things to pay back what you owe. Failing to do so will relieve you of the troublesome burden of your freedom, as you are either thrown into prison or forced into servitude.

We don't know when we those who finance our debt will lose patience, but there are already signs that it's coming soon. If we don't make some tough decisions now and start making some serious progress on this debt -- starting with a huge cut in spending -- we're going to find ourselves forced into some unpleasant things, and potentially losing the troublesome burden of our freedom.

It's time we elected some people who acknowledged this looming disaster, and are willing to tackle it. Neither party has been willing to do so, though one could argue that glimmers of responsibility have been seen in the GOP in recent memory. I'd say it's time to get serious and demand some action from our elected leaders in Washington.

There's my two cents.

How Leftist Are The Democrats In The Senate?

Scary-Leftist:

It wasn't long ago that the likes of Sen. Jim DeMint were being made fun of for calling the Democrats "socialist." But Cato's David Boaz makes the interesting observation that we are so lucky as to have a naturally occurring benchmark in self-identified socialist senator Bernie Sanders, who, incidentally, caucuses with the Democrats.

Boaz dusts off his copies of the National Taxpayer's Union and American Conservative Union's guides, and discovers that there are plenty of senators who are rated more liberal than Sanders.

...42 senators in 2008 voted to spend more tax dollars than socialist Bernie Sanders. They include his neighbor Pat Leahy; Californians Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, who just can't understand why their home state is in fiscal trouble; and the Eastern Seaboard anti-taxpayer Murderers' Row of Kerry, Dodd, Lieberman, Clinton, Schumer, Lautenberg, Menendez, Carper, Biden, Cardin, and Mikulski. Don't carry cash on Amtrak! Not to mention Blanche Lambert Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, who apparently think Arkansans don't pay taxes so federal spending is free. Sen. Barack Obama didn't vote often enough to get a rating in 2008, but in 2007 he managed to be one of the 11 senators who voted for more spending than the socialist senator.

And:

The Republican Liberty Caucus declared 14 senators, including Sanders, to have voted 100 percent anti-economic freedom in 2008, though Sanders voted better than 31 colleagues in support of personal liberties.

It doesn't surprise me at all that if you go by the records, many Democrats are "socialists" at least by Sanders's standards. Very few senators are ever obligated to acount for their overarching political outlooks. If they did so honestly, however, I would expect for the out-and-out socialists to come off looking much better than the many members who don't care about much more than pursuing and guarding their own power.

Of course, no one would call the "centrist" Blanche Lincoln a socialist. The fact that she voted to spend more than Sanders says more about the effect the Senate's concentrated power has on its members than it does about their relative personal philosophies.

If you ask me, it's even worse in the House, but it gets somewhat diluted since there are 435 of them rather than 100.  Regardless, this is why the country has taken a severe lurch to the Left.  The longer these people remain in power, the worse off our country is going to become.  Don't take my word for it, though...just look at their votes.  That's all the evidence any thinking person needs.

There's my two cents.

Take Off The Tinfoil Hat

AH-HAH!!!

Here's a seemingly little-noticed update on Hillary Clinton:

TAVIS SMILEY: Finally, there's already speculation about whether or not Secretary Clinton is going to do this for the full first time, and whether or not she has any interest if asked to stay on to do it for eight years? You see how tough the job is, can you imagine yourself doing all four years and, if asked, doing it for another four years?

HILLARY CLINTON: No, I really can't. I mean, it is just…

TAVIS SMILEY: No to what? All four or eight?

HILLARY CLINTON: The whole, the whole eight, I mean, that that would be very challenging. But I, you know, I don't wanna make any predictions sitting here, I'm honored to serve, I serve at the pleasure of the President, but it's a, it's a 24/7 job, and I think at some point, I will be very happy to LAUGHS pass it on to someone else.

TAVIS SMILEY: That opens the door for the obvious question, what would Hillary Clinton want to do when she is no longer Secretary of State?

HILLARY CLINTON: Oh, I, there's so many things I'm interested in, I mean, really going back to private life and spending time reading, and writing, and maybe teaching, doing some personal travel, not the kind of travel where you bring along a couple of hundred people with you. Just focusing on, on issues of women, girls, families, the kind of intersection between what's considered 'real politique' and real life politics, which has always fascinated me.

Mm-hmmm.  Spend time reading...?  Riiiiiight.

Let's review.  It was Hillary's turn to be President, right up until she got out-foxed (some would say cheated) by this young upstart Obama in the Iowa Caucus.  Things went downhill from there, and she ends up backing out of the Dem primary to accept a high-profile position in his Cabinet.  However, she doesn't disband her campaign office.  A recent Gallup poll has her more well-liked than Obama.  Now she's talking about how she won't be SecState for more than four years -- coinciding nicely with the end of Obama's first term in office -- and is being cagey about what she's planning to do next.  How many dots do we need to see before we start connecting them?  This is nothing new - we discussed the idea of Hillary 2012 way back before the 2008 election

And now, Barack Obama has made such a mess of the Democrat party's electoral chances that we are starting to see Dems clamoring for Hillary to unseat him.

Methinks the tinfoil hat must come off!

But wouldn't such a challenge be disastrous for the Democrat party as a whole?  Perhaps; under normal circumstances, an intra-party challenge certainly would be.  But, can things really get a whole lot worse for the Dems in 2010 and 2012 than they're already shaping up to be?  So what's going to happen to Barack Obama if Hillary does challenge him?  Is there a way to avoid the intra-party conflict?

Well...Moe Lane at RedState traces Obama's professional career (it's a short trace) and links a very interesting story from Byron York:

This is about the time Barack Obama becomes bored with his job.


He's in his second year as president, and he's discovered that even with all the powers of office, he can't do everything he wants to do, like remake America. Doing stuff is hard. In the past, prosaic work has held little appeal for Obama, and it's prompted him to think about moving on.


Begin with his first serious job, as a community organizer in Chicago. Obama got a little done, but quickly became frustrated with small achievements. "He didn't see organizing making any significant changes in things," Jerry Kellman, the organizer who hired him, told me in 2008.


What Obama wanted was political power, and that is what sent him to Harvard Law School. "He was constantly thinking about his path to significance and power," another organizer, Mike Kruglik, told me. "He said, 'I need to go there [Harvard] to find out more about power. How do powerful people think? What kind of networks do they have? How do they connect to each other?'"


Constantly seeking greater and greater power, and getting bored after just a short time in every position he's ever held?  Hmmm...

Coincidentally, I was just doing a little light reading about the U.N. Secretary General the other day, and I noticed that the SecGen serves a 5 year term.  The current SecGen Ban Ki-Moon was elected in 2006 and took office in 2007.  Hmmm...  I consulted my nifty mental calculator and discovered that the next SecGen would be elected in ***GASP*** 2011, to take office in 2012!  Given that Obama is doing so much to erase America's global leadership -- economically, militarily, freedom-wise, and in all other possible ways -- the rest of the world generally appears to think pretty fondly of him.  Double hmmm...

Okay, maybe the tinfoil hat should go back on with that last part.  But, when I see a story about someone proposing an exception to the rule that nations on the permanent Security Council can't field a SecGen, it's coming right back off again...

There's my two cents.

Economy Grows 5.7% In 4th Quarter...More Or Less

This is the perfect example of how biased the media is.  Take these two snippets from the recent GDP news:

The economy grew at a faster-than-expected 5.7 percent pace in the fourth quarter, the quickest in more than six years...

The ... performance closed out a year in which the economy contracted 2.4 percent, the biggest decline since 1946...

Now, if you were the mainstream media, which would you use as your headline?  If George W. Bush is President, you pick the second one; if Barack Obama is President, you pick the first.  Naturally.

Anyway, the quarter growth was so positive because businesses were apparently cutting back on their inventories less than expected.  This number will likely be revised downward in the next few weeks, and this sort of inventory adjustment isn't exactly a repeatable event...but hey, let's celebrate whatever growth we can see for what it's worth, right?

Of course, we can also expect to see the White House trumpet this as evidence that the recovery is over, or at least progressing nicely. Don't buy it (emphasis mine):

Arthur Laffer, creator of the Laffer Curve that showed how low tax rates boost economic growth, is warning anyone who will listen that the economy is headed for a "train wreck" in 2011 that will make the current recession look tame by comparison

The famed economist, whose supply-side, tax-cutting policies enacted by President Reagan in 1981 put the economy on a record-breaking, 25-year economic trajectory of growth and prosperity, is telling Americans not to be lulled by sporadic signs of growth this year, because the economy is headed for a sharper decline next year when tax rates are expected to jump sharply, sending the economy into a new tailspin. 

"It will make the decline in U.S. output from 2010 to 2011 worse than the decline in output in 2008 and 2009 which will catastrophic," Laffer said in an interview with HUMAN EVENTS.

In a wide-ranging discussion about where the economy is headed, and the fiscal, tax and monetary reasons why, Laffer gives a bleak forecast of where President Obama and his administration are taking the country in the next three years -- which he predicts will end with Obama's defeat in 2012. 

"Obama is a fine, very impressive person. He really is. Unfortunately, everything that he is doing in economics is exactly wrong. He is a crappy president," Laffer said. 

"Whenever a country is in the throes of spending too much and raising taxes, it's a fiscal catastrophe in the making and this is what is happening now," he said. 

These tax rates that he's talking about 'jumping sharply' are those that George W. Bush enacted in 2001 and 2003, which dropped the income tax rates on all Americans across the income board.  These are the tax cuts that Barack Obama is planning to let expire.  He's been quite up front about his plans to raise taxes on 'the rich', but he hasn't exactly broadcast the fact that that increase will also hit everyone else, too.  Not exactly a small detail, huh?

We've talked before about a double-dip recession, and that's what Laffer is predicting if these tax cuts are not made permanent, or at least extended.  You have been warned; it might not be a bad thing to pick up the phone and call your elected reps.  Let's hope that even Obama opens his eyes to the fact that such a large tax hike will cause big, big problems during such an economically unstable time.

Nah, I don't think he will, either.

There's my two cents.

DemCare Parachute Watch!

Brace yourself, the Left is revealing its intentions to do literally anything necessary to force DemCare down your throat:



From the Senate side, we're seeing this via a Hugh Hewitt interview with Senator Jon Kyle:

HH: It’s remarkable, but let’s get to the news of the day. There is some talk that the Democrats are going to try reconciliation, a jam down of their bitterly divisive, and almost certainly wrong-headed health care plan. What can you tell us about this?

JK: This is kind of breaking news. As you say, we’re just hearing it. We haven’t been formally advised, but we have it on relatively good authority. And this would be what they call the nuclear option. This would be we can’t do it with 60 votes, because now we have a new Senator from Massachusetts, so we’ll do it with 51. Now it’s called the nuclear option, because it really upsets all of the tradition and precedent within the Senate which on a really big bill on the magnitude of health care, would always have strong bipartisan support, and therefore the 60 vote requirement really doesn’t matter. But here, using an arcane part of the budget that ordinarily relates to tax cuts or tax increases, it doesn’t relate to comprehensive bills with a lot of substantive provisions in them, but just changes in the tax code, usually. They’re going to try to rewrite this bill to, where it would only need 51 votes, and still accomplish most of what the bill will accomplish. Now what this will do is let the Blanche Lincolns and Ben Nelsons and Evan Bayhs and other to say oh, I can’t go along with this now. And of course, that’s exactly what their constituents want to hear. But it doesn’t matter, because their votes in effect at this point don’t count. They don’t matter. All it takes is 51 Democrats to vote for it, and it becomes law. It remains to be seen how long the process will take, and whether, and how much of the provisions of the comprehensive health care reform that we’ve been looking at can be scooped up into this legislation. But it now appears the Democrats are going to try that.

Keep in mind they're doing this while even a CNN poll shows that only 30% of the nation wants this to happen.

These people are cheerfully committing political suicide by taking over -- translation: destroying -- the American health care system. Of course, they will be exempt from the system they're forcing down our throats, so they have no skin in the game.
They're counting on the fact that while this takeover will cause catastrophic losses in the short term, it will net a permanent Leftist state like Europe in the long term.

This absolutely MUST be stopped.

Our GOP Senators have done a decent job of standing firm against DemCare over the past few months, so we should expect them to continue to do so. However, now we need to be demanding that they do anything and everything to prevent this vote from taking place. Every parliamentary trick should be used, every potential amendment and diversion should be proposed, there should not be a single unanimous consent vote given from this point on. We need to call our GOP Senators and demand that they not only stand against this vote, but that they do literally everything under the sun to prevent the vote from taking place. The polls show America is on their side, and the Dems (if they do in fact go for reconciliation) have shown they have given up all pretenses at democracy, integrity, and representation of their constituents.

It. Is. War. The Senate GOP needs to engage 1000% right NOW, starting with a complete shutdown of the Senate until Scott Brown is seated. This one is for all the marbles, and we cannot afford for the GOP to be its usual limp-wristed self.

There's my two cents.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Stop Your Whining - You Did This!

I'm really, really tired of hearing Barack Obama whining about how he 'inherited' so many problems from George W. Bush. You know what? Be a man, be a grown-up, be a PRESIDENT, for crying out loud! Most Presidents do inherit a load of crap. It's called real life in a world full of natural disasters and evil tyrants. Stop being a baby and deal with it.

And let's all remember:

Obama Voted for, or Signed Into Law, Every Blessed Penny of 2009's Spending

Blame Bush!

For not curing the nation of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Because Obama thinks of himself as a blameless victim for everything he did.

[O]n March 14, 2008, then Sen. Obama voted in favor of the 2009 budget which authorized $3.1 trillion in federal outlays along with a projected $400 billion deficit. The 51-44 vote that morning was strongly along party lines with only two Republicans saying "Yes."

When the final conference report was presented to the House on June 5, not one Republican voted for it.

This means the 2009 budget was almost exclusively approved by Democrats, with "Yeas" coming from current President then Sen. Obama, his current Vice President then Sen. Joe Biden, his current Chief of Staff then Rep. Rahm Emanuel, and his current Secretary of State then Sen. Hillary Clinton.

How is this possibly something that happened before Obama "walked in the door" when his Party ramrodded the original budget through Congress with virtually no Republican approval -- save Bush's signature, of course -- and the highest members of the current Administration -- including the president himself!!! -- supported it when they were either in the Senate or the House?

Sadly, Obama-loving media care not to address this inconvenient truth.

But that's just the beginning, for on October 1, 2008, Obama, Biden, and Clinton voted in favor of the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program designed to prevent teetering financial institutions from completely destroying the economy. Couldn't Obama only disavow responsibility for this if he had voted no along with the other 25 Senators disapproving the measure?

And what about the $787 billion stimulus bill that passed in February 2009 with just three Republican votes? Wouldn't Obama only be blameless if he vetoed it and was later overridden?

Of course, he didn't, and, instead signed it into law on February 17. Nor did he veto the $410 billion of additional spending Congress sent to his desk three weeks later.

Add it all up, and Obama approved every penny spent in fiscal 2009 either via his votes in the Senate or his signature as President.

So shut up with the incessant whining and act like a President instead of just pretending to be one.

There's my two cents.

One More Flogging Of The SOTU

Okay, I'm hoping this will be the last one.  If I post more on this, it'll have to be a real gem.  As it is, the opinions below are excellent.

Clearly, after stunning losses in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts over the past few months, this Administration was sent a message from the American people that they are mad at President Obama's big government policies.  He did not hear that message and he told them last night that he is pushing forward with ObamaCare and other big government ideas.  They don't want it.

The President, when not blaming the Bush Administration for his problems, merely thinks that the American people are not listening to him.  This is good news for conservatives, because the President's speech last night shows that he will take no action to right the ship before Congressional elections this November and he seems incapable of a nuanced approach to politics that includes a mix of conservative and liberal approaches to problem solving.  The President is like the Captain of the Titanic in April of 1912 steaming past huge icebergs in the hope that his ship of state somehow makes it until the end of the year without a catastrophic collision.

State of the Union speeches regularly infuriate the opposing party, and to that extent Barack Obama met and exceeded expectations last night.

One aspect of the speech deservedly is receiving most attention: The crude attempt to intimidate the Supreme Court in front of the Congress and the nation. Here's the relevant text:

With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.) I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. (Applause.) They should be decided by the American people. And I'd urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.

The video shows the Supreme Court, surrounded by cheering and standing Democratic Congressmen and Senators, sitting mostly stone-faced in the face of the Congressional mob, except for Justice Alito who apparently mouthed the words "not true."

The details are well publicized, and Instapundit has a good round-up of why the President's attack was both false and unprecedented.

Put aside for the moment that this is the same President who had his campaign disable credit card security features on his campaign website so that there would be no way to ensure compliance with federal campaign laws. This post is not about mere hypocrisy, which is a common trait in politicians.

The attack on the Supreme Court during the State of the Union was a window into Obama's divisive soul. I have posted numerous times before about Obama's need to identify and campaign against enemies. He did it during the campaign and he does it every day in office.

Last night it was (mostly) the bankers and Wall Street (which donated more money to his campaign than to Republicans) and the Senate Republicans who were his target. But it those were the only attacks, it would have been merely another typical political speech.

The attack on the Supreme Court exposes the intolerance of this President. The politician who campaigned and allegedly champions the rule of law actually has very little use for the rule of law when it does not advance his political agenda.

Last night was an attempt at intimidation, a chance to work the referees on the sideline during a home game with the guarantee of crowd approval.

This one is my favorite, and I highly recommend hitting the link to read in its entirety:

Viewers of the State of the Union address last night were treated to the spectacle of a man completely disconnected from reality, insisting the country join him in celebrating his failures as rousing successes… or at least the best anyone could have expected to do, in the long shadow of George Bush. It wasn't a President honestly discussing the state of the union. It was a long, rambling exit interview from a deluded employee, who thinks he was called into the office to get a raise instead of a pink slip. It was the hurt and confusion of an academic who doesn't understand how his B+ term paper could have become such a disaster when implemented in the real world, and insists it will still work, if everyone pays closer attention to the extensive footnotes.

Beyond the fact-checkable whoppers fried up on the grill of desperate political necessity, the speech illustrated a disturbing ignorance of the way every facet of our economy and culture is connected. Barack Obama is a disconnected President, who lacks a basic understanding of the fantastically complex system he pretends to control. He's a vain and egotistical man frantically waving his arms in front of a symphony he can barely hear, and claiming to be the conductor.

It was surreal to watch a politician announce his top priority is job creation, then spend the next hour listing class-warfare enemies...

It's painful to listen to someone who wants to add nationalized banks to his collection of state-run car companies wax poetic about the power of entrepreneurs, then list all the ways he's going to punish risk-taking and achievement. ... If no one has incentives to excel, and risk-taking is a felony offense, small businesses don't appear and grow. Entrepreneurship does not thrive in the thin soil of a command economy. Contrary to Democrat Party rhetoric, banks do not exist to give people credit cards they can pay off whenever they get around to it, or mortgages they "deserve" but cannot possibly afford.

Praise for the resilient spirit of the American people rings hollow, coming from a man who doesn't think they can be trusted to manage their own health care without government supervision. ...

A politician who wants to swell the size of an already-titanic government has no business complaining about lobbyists and special interests, especially when he thinks "special interest" means "a powerful group that doesn't contribute money to my party." The party of George Soros, and the candidate who turned his campaign website into a Swiss bank account by disabling its basic identity checks, have nothing useful to say about keeping "foreign money" out of politics. ...

This State of the Union speech was the midterm exam in a long, painful lesson about the interdependence of politics, culture, and the economy. The challenge facing a democracy is to maintain a government that secures freedom against anarchy, without following its worst instincts into tyranny. Government is force, and the larger its programs become, the more it becomes fixated on compliance. The belief that we can let the government control some portions of our lives and industry, while the rest remain vibrant and creative, is a childish fantasy that should have died for good last night, before the spectacle of a man who doesn't understand why his declared capitalist enemies aren't producing enough jobs to boost his approval ratings. When he urged Americans to begin removing the obstacles to their success, he was too disconnected to understand that process already began in Massachusetts last week.

Amen to that.  Amen.

There's my two cents.



Related Reading:

USA Today Furthers The Cause Of Politically Correct Shtoopidity

Oh boy:

Ignorance is not such bliss these days. It's more like bias and get-me-off-this-airplane fear.

In today's headlines we have a new survey showing that most Americans admit knowing nothing about Islam -- but they still dislike it more than any other major faith.

And there's a good reason for that, but let's see what USA Today says first, shall we?  They quote Rachel Zoll of the AP:

Asked about knowledge of Islam, 63% of Americans say they have "very little" or "none at all." A large majority of respondents believe most Muslims want peace. Yet, 53% of Americans say their opinion of the faith is "not too favorable" or "not favorable at all."

Why might that be?  Well, hm, I dunno, could it possibly be something related to the fact that almost every time someone straps a bomb to himself or goes on a maddened killing rampage he's a MUSLIM?!

Nah, just coincidence.  [sticking fingers deeply into ears]  Ponies and rainbows! Ponies and rainbows! Ponies and rainbows! 

What's even more schtoopid than Zoll and USA Today missing the obvious connection here is what they use as their justification for the article's entire premise:

An Orthodox Jewish teen saying traditional prayers and binding himself with boxes containing passages from the Torah so unnerved folks, their New York to Louisville flight was diverted to Philadelphia where the passengers were evacuated and the boy questioned. In an unscientific quick poll, Today in the Sky asked if this was proof of cultural ignorance or a necessary precaution these days -- and that's running close to a tie vote.

A 'unscientific quick poll'?  Is this what passes for evidence in journalism nowadays?  Sadly, it is if it fits the liberal template.

And on a side note...even if this teen was a Jew rather than a Muslim, he should have known better than to do any kind of ritual prayer that involves sticking things to his body in public.  It's one thing to practice religious freedom, but in this day and age of Islamic terrorism -- especially in and around airports and airplanes -- isn't it fairly obvious that this is a brain-dead stupid thing to do?

But back to the main point.  This article is dripping with the kind of politically correct idiocy that is going to get more Americans killed.  I wonder if the author and editor of this article would feel any different if they were sitting next to a young Muslim man the next time they flew on vacation with their families.  I wonder if they would react any differently if that young Muslim man began chanting a loud prayer, then suddenly bolted out of his seat...

Somehow I'm guessing they might (I surely hope so, anyway!).  It's sad that they can't make this leap of logic without being in mortal peril first.  Welcome to the wonderful world of liberalism, where it's all ponies and rainbows all the time.  Until the bombs go off, that is.

There's my two cents.

Sometimes The Truth Is Worse Than Farce

We had some fun at the expense of the President this week in regard to his use of teleprompters in a 6th grade classroom, though that technically was a statement to reporters. All joking aside, we now see this:


Seriously?! Hot Air supplies the context:

This isn't a press conference, a speech, or even a White House briefing. It's a committee meeting. As Rich said, people used to poke fun at Reagan's notecards. Either he needs this much help to get through opening remarks in a normal business meeting, or he's become a little to attached to the TOTUS … and neither option makes him look very professional.

What does it say that the most powerful man in the world (theoretically, at least) can't even make it through a lowly committee meeting without reading off of a pre-determined script? I mean, doesn't every 9th grader in the country have to stand up and give some sort of speech in English class every year? If they can do it without teleprompters, why can't this supposed intellectual giant who graduated from Hah-vud?

It's no wonder that the world is collectively laughing at America right now.

There's my two cents.

PS - It also underscores how poor a candidate John McCain was that he couldn't soundly defeat Obama in the pre-election debates. Sheesh.

This Is Why Brown Needs To Be Seated NOW

Washington Post:

The Senate agreed Thursday to raise the legal limit on government borrowing to a record $14.3 trillion, a total that would permit the Treasury Department to cover the nation's bills through the end of this year.

The vote fell strictly along party lines, with all 60 Democrats supporting and all 40 Republicans opposing a plan to increase the cap by $1.9 trillion. If lawmakers had approved a smaller increase, Democrats would have had to revisit the deeply unpopular topic of the soaring national debt before facing voters in November.

These people are out of control.  Scott Brown needs to be seated as the 41st Senator immediately.

There's my two cents.

More SOTU Reactions

Okay, I'm going to try not to beat a dead horse with the SOTU, but it's an annual tradition, so to some extent it simply must be done.  I'll list the links below along with a short teaser, and let you check out the ones that intrigue you.  There's a bunch of good stuff in there!

In a flatly-delivered, 70-minute speech, Obama made several nods to conservatives by talking tax and spending cuts, while at the same time refusing to abandon the liberal agenda items he outlined last year.

When it came to the economy, Obama endorsed many conservative criticisms of his policies. "[T]he true engine of job creation in this country will always be America's businesses," he declared. He called for earmark reform. And in an affront to Keynesians who argue that deficit spending is necessary to boost an ailing economy, he said, "families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same."

Yet he continued to talk up government spending as a means to spur economic growth, and called for a second stimulus bill.

The speech began with an elegant and elevated opening, but quickly descended into scolding and condescension.

He scolded the justices of the Supreme Court in front of their faces and led the entire Democratic side of the aisle into cheering his taunts. The justices sat there stone-faced (save Justice Alito, whose reaction probably betrayed what the rest were thinking).

He scolded Republicans for obstruction and declared "we can't wage a perpetual campaign" — even as he continued, in his speech, his perpetual campaign against President Bush. The fact is, by this time in their presidencies, both of his predecessors had reached across the aisle to seek opposition support for a major initiative (Clinton on NAFTA, Bush on No Child Left Behind). Obama has not one single significant bipartisan initiative to speak of. He has tried to ram through his agenda along strict party-line votes. But the Republicans are obstructionist.

His one moment of "humility" came when he acknowledged his biggest mistake of the past year: his failure to adequately explain his policies to all of us. This was a State of the Union for the slow learners. His message to all of us was: "Let me speak slowly for you."
Spending freeze – The AP points out that it will save less than 1% of predicted deficits over the next ten years — and that Obama scoffed at such a plan when John McCain proposed it in 2008.

Health care – Obama said the Democratic plan would allow people to keep their insurance and their doctors, but the bill doesn't guarantee either.  Their plan has massive cuts to Medicare Advantage, which would definitely affect coverage of a large portion of America's seniors and disabled.

Openness: "Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign — to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN "so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it's acted upon."
It's interesting. He is post-racial, by all appearances. You know, I forgot he was black tonight for an hour. You know, he's gone a long way to become a leader of this country, and passed so much history in just a year or two. I mean, it's something we don't even think about.
[Before the speech,] the New Republic's Jonathan Cohn wrote:

Today Obama faces a dire threat to his presidency: A political backlash threatening to destroy his signature domestic policy initiative and, more broadly, his entire governing agenda. Can he give the speech of his political life–again?

I hope he can. But it won't be easy.

After the speech, ... Cohn wrote:

If you follow health care reform, you probably want to know if President Obama saved health care reform with his State of the Union address. The answer is no.

But that's only because there's no way he could save it with just one speech. It's too big a job.

Unemployment still 10%.

Deficit still at record levels.

Debt still at record levels.

Spending still at record levels.

Wars still going on.

Gitmo still open.

Market still skiddish.

Sea levels not rising or receding.

Climate not getting warmer because of humans.

Just another speech by a man who's solution to every problem in the world is to make more speeches.


Excellent, excellent stuff.

There's my two cents.

Initial Post-SOTU Impressions

I'm sure there will be a flood of analysis in the next couple days, but here are a few snippets to get you started. First, the full transcript of the speech can be found here.

Now, let's look at some facts. Those are always interesting, and usually counter to a Democrat's speech.

The Supreme Court
Tonight the president engaged in demogoguery of the worst kind, when he claimed that last week's Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, "open[ed] the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities."

The president's statement is false.

The Court held that 2 U.S.C. Section 441a, which prohibits all corporate political spending, is unconstitutional. Foreign nationals, specifically defined to include foreign corporations, are prohibiting from making "a contribution or donation of money or ather thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State or local election" under 2 U.S.C. Section 441e, which was not at issue in the case. Foreign corporations are also prohibited, under 2 U.S.C. 441e, from making any contribution or donation to any committee of any political party, and they prohibited from making any "expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication... ."

This is either blithering ignorance of the law, or demogoguery of the worst kind.
SC judge Sam Alito was captured on film as mouthing the words 'not true' to Obama's statement. Who should we believe, a hack lying legal novice with no track record but a giant political axe to grind, or an expert in the Constitution who is beholden to no one but his own conscience? Hm.

On Lobbyists

Tonight, Barack Obama said, “To close that credibility gap we must take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; and to give our people the government they deserve.

“That’s what I came to Washington to do. That’s why – for the first time in history – my Administration posts our White House visitors online. And that’s why we’ve excluded lobbyists from policy-making jobs or seats on federal boards and commissions.

Maybe this explains why his national security policies are so weak. He put William Lynn in the Pentagon as Deputy Defense Secretary. Mr. Lynn was a lobbyist for Defense Contractor Ratheon. I guess the Deputy Defense Secretary is not a policy-making job.

But, there are many, many more - at least a dozen top-level advisers who were professional lobbyists before accepting their current positions.

Heritage offers a huge roundup on the speech. Here are some of the responses:
Economy
President Obama inherited a global recession and a global financial meltdown. So far, his enacted policies have had no beneficial effect as the 10 percent unemployment demonstrates in spades, and his threatened policies remain perhaps the greatest barrier to a strong economy. The economy will recover, and appears to have started to do so, thanks to the inherent strengths of the American economic system and the energy and hard work of American families and American businesses. The President now says he is focused intently on getting the economy to create jobs, but his announced policies say otherwise. Altogether, they are little more than a series of benign sounding talking points substituting for serious action, similar in quality and nature to the proposals already advancing in the House and the Senate.
Jobs
President Obama is right to focus intensely on the economy and jobs. When he took office, the unemployment rate was 7.7 percent. One year and $1.4 trillion later (total deficit spending from February, 2009 to December, 2009), the unemployment rate stands at 10 percent, and 3.4 million jobs have been lost.

In addition to his ineffectual fiscal stimulus, Obama has proposed a variety of policies sharing the unified characteristic of being anti-jobs. He proposed higher tax rates on investment and small businesses. He proposed an immensely expensive and unpopular health care reform. He proposed massive additional taxes through cap and trade. It is fair to say the policies of Obama and his congressional allies, through the uncertainties and threats they make toward the producers in the American economy, are the single greatest impediment to economic recovery we now face.

Bank tax
President Obama tonight called for a new tax on banks and other large financial institutions, “a modest fee,” he said, “to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need.” That sounds great, but in truth, the new tax would do nothing of the kind. Mr. Obama knows that almost every major bank has paid back their bailout funds, with interest. Taxpayers made substantial profits on those repayments.

On the other hand, most of the companies that still owe billions to taxpayers, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and auto firms GM and Chrysler would not be subject to the tax. In short, Mr. Obama would tax those that have paid back taxpayers, and exempt those who have not.

DemCare
Despite overwhelming public opposition, the President in his State of the Union restated his commitment to flawed health care legislation that would transfer more power and decisions to Washington and away from patients and families.

These flawed bills would nullify the President’s numerous promises, ranging from allowing Americans to keep their existing coverage to protecting middle class Americans from tax increases. Indeed, the congressional health care legislation would break his pledges for fixing the economy, bringing down deficits, and creating jobs. In fact, the health care bills would cost in excess of $2 Trillion over the next 10 years and increase, not decrease, health care spending. Moreover, projections show the bill, when taken in its entirety, would add billions to the already staggering federal deficit and record government debt. Finally, the bills’ taxes and mandates would weaken the economy and lead to fewer jobs.

All fair-minded Americans, regardless of their political views, have been appalled by process. This includes blatant special interest politics at the expense of taxpayers, including backroom schemes to exempt some groups from provisions of the bill while forcing the rest of Americans to pick up the tab. The subsequent decline in public trust has been aggravated by the cavalier violation of the President’s numerous and highly publicized pledges to guarantee transparency, including C-Span coverage of congressional negotiations.

War on Terror
More than 40 minutes into his State of the Union speech, Obama mentioned terrorism. If you weren’t listening carefully, you might have missed it. It was all about 10 sentences.

This isn’t surprising. Obama has at times in the past year seemed reluctant to embrace the responsibility of defending the nation against acts of terrorism. Thus far, President Obama has only given one speech on the war on terrorism in his time in office. He pledged early on to close down Guantanamo Bay and prosecute terrorists in civil courts. And at the same time, he has limited the tools of the CIA and done everything he can to distance himself from Bush era counterterrorism policies, remaining almost silent on reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, provisions which he is said to support.

These actions are of course cracking under the weight of the national security threats facing the nation. And this lack of enthusiasm for his national security responsibilities has caught the attention of the American public. The Christmas Day plot was a reminder to all of what can happen if an Administration fails in this duty. Americans are asking—will President Obama take the steps necessary to defend the United States against its enemies?

Defense Spending
For a speech well over an hour in length, it was hard not to notice the breezy and brief reference to military needs. The President spoke for only a moment about the need to provide the U.S. military the resources it needs during war and support when forces return home.

Both priorities are incredibly important to sustaining the long-term health of the America’s Armed Forces. However, the President made no mention of his long-term commitment to the military and the urgent demand to give our men and women in uniform a capable array of next-generation systems to defeat any threat in the future, as well as those threats in Iraq and Afghanistan today.

Green Jobs
The President apparently has dropped the term “green jobs” and instead has adopted the new term “clean energy” jobs. New words, same failed ideas.

Spain provides a case in point. With a world-leading quantity of both wind and solar electricity (both highly subsidized), Spain’s green-job creation should be second to none. However a study by Spanish economist Dr. Gabriel Calzada found 2.2 conventional jobs were destroyed for each green job created. This finding is consistent with Spain’s overall employment situation. At 19.4 percent, Spain’s latest unemployment rate is nearly double that of not only the United States (10.0 percent) but it is also nearly double the rate for Spain’s European neighbors, France (10.0 percent) and Portugal (9.8 percent).

Budget-busting subsidies and ham-fisted regulations will not help end the recession. Instead, they will shrink economic activity and prolong the recovery.
Inherited Deficits
The President’s claim that the long-term trillion-dollar budget deficits are “the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program” is clearly misleading. While these factors contributed to turning earlier surpluses into deficits, the budget deficit still stood at just $162 billion when the recession began in late 2007. The larger subsequent deficits have been driven by the recession, the financial bailouts, the President’s stimulus bill, and large discretionary spending hikes enacted by a Democratic Congress. Once the recession ends and its costs wind down, budget projections show permanent trillion-dollar deficits driven by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid growth, as well as the higher discretionary spending baseline, and growing net interest costs on this large debt – not even counting the President’s expensive proposals.
Following the Constitution
The former law school lecturer left much to be desired concerning legal issues in his State of the Union address.

First, in addressing the White House’s signature proposal to date, the President failed to give any assurances that he will expend any effort to force Congress to address the serious constitutional failures of the health care mandates in the existing versions of the legislation.

Second, the President ridiculed the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Citizen’s United as opening “the floodgates for special interest.” Contrary to the President’s characterization, the decision properly rejected the idea that the government can decide who gets to speak and ban some from speaking at all, particularly those doing their speaking through associations of members who share their beliefs. Amazingly, he urged Congress to “right this wrong” – amazing because the “wrong” is First Amendment protection of speech rights.

Third, the President claimed that his administration “has a Civil Rights Division that is once again prosecuting civil rights violations and employment discrimination.” This will come as news to anyone who has followed the Justice Department’s shenanigans in the New Black Panther Party case, one in which the Civil Rights Division chose not enforce a default judgment it had secured in a case against individuals caught on tape intimidating voters. Rather than prosecuting civil rights violations, the Obama Justice Department is seeking to evade subpoenas from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which is investigating the incident. If Obama is serious about showing that his civil right division follows and enforces the law, he should begin by complying with the Commission’s subpoenas.
There is much, much more at the link. Suffice it to say that his speech was little more than a campaign-style tirade long on promises and short on substance. Where he used factual-sounding verbiage, he was usually wrong.

Here are some initial impressions outside of the facts...

Yuval Levin
...on the whole, this was really an incredibly graceless, self-righteous, and grouchy performance. It had a lot of what’s bad about Obama’s speeches (he said “I” almost a hundred times, repeatedly referred to his campaign as though it were a great American story we all love, continued to blame Bush for everything under the sun even as he said he was “not interested in re-litigating the past,” and piled clichés sky high) but none of what’s good about his speeches—the simple theme simply pursued. It was a very Clintonian speech without Clinton’s human charm.
Peter Robinson
What's the takeaway?

The tone.

Defensive, hectoring, self-righteous, self-referential, and angry. An astonishing performance.

Legal Insurrection
This was a small speech. A lot of petty pot shots, including at the Supreme Court. Very Nixonian, in that regard.

The verbiage was anything but soaring. The joke about root canal must have been off-teleprompter.

I really don't think he gets what is happening in Massachusetts and across this country. He is living in a bubble.

Obama seemed like someone lost at sea, grasping at everything. This was not the Obama of the campaign, because the campaign stump speeches cannot work anymore.

The blame Bush theme is tired.

The nation is tired of hearing these speeches and the whining.
Dan Perrin at RedState

It is difficult to term his state of the union address a speech. It was more like a lecture that combined a chest-beating tone that he is doing the tough work of saving the nation and he expects Congress and the nation to follow him. And it was all made awkward for his audience by his repeated insistence that he does not quit.

His plea for Congress to take another look at his health reform bill seemed weak.

But essentially it was a message to the American public that he is “not going to walk away” and is going impose the change he wants, regardless of what the American people want.

In other words, I am not listening.

I do not think Americans like to be lectured and being told: I am doing what I think is right, regardless of what you want.

It was weird, actually.

Bill Kristol

President Obama says he is "not interested in re-litigating the past." Well, I am -- at least to this extent: Would it have been too much for the president of the United States to have acknowledged and paid tribute to a truly remarkable recent American achievement -- turning around the war in Iraq and putting that war on course to a successful outcome?

Here's what Obama did say about Iraq:

As we take the fight to al Qaeda, we are responsibly leaving Iraq to its people. As a candidate, I promised that I would end this war, and that is what I am doing as president. We will have all of our combat troops out of Iraq by the end of this August. We will support the Iraqi government as they hold elections, and continue to partner with the Iraqi people to promote regional peace and prosperity. But make no mistake: this war is ending, and all of our troops are coming home.

That's it: "This war is ending." But it's ending in a certain way -- with success. It could have ended with failure. Success rather than failure in Iraq has made a big difference elsewhere in the Middle East -- including in Iran. ...

Yet Obama can't bring himself to say that we prevailed in Iraq. He did say that "tonight, all of our men and women in uniform -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world must know that they have our respect, our gratitude, and our full support." But he won't say that we are grateful for their victory in a war where defeat would have been disastrous.

I would also remind that Obama was all in favor of surrendering back in 2006, and it was only George W. Bush's stubborn refusal to surrender that brought us this victory.

What are the major media outlets saying? So far, they're doing the typical cheerleader act.

The Republican response was done by Bob McDonnell, and by all accounts, it was excellent.

Here are my thoughts on Obama's speech as I watched it (it's late, so I'm not going to go back and link previous posts where applicable; but, all of this stuff has been documented on this blog in the past)...

Obama listed a whole bunch of taxes that he's cut. Funny, the only thing I can remember is a $13/month credit that went to the middle and lower classes! Oh, and by the way, that $13/month will be counted as taxable income next year. The other things he's talking about, I assume, are the various bailouts and 'cash for...' programs. I'm sorry, but he doesn't seem to understand what a tax CUT is. He specifically raised taxes on lower income Americans with the S-CHIP bill (the vast majority of smokers are lower income), he's planning to let Bush's tax cuts expire at the end of this year (which will raise everyone's income tax rates), and every single one of his massive spending bills can only be paid for by raising taxes. He's nuts.

Obama said that 2 million jobs have been created or saved. Really? How did they get that number? This blog and a multitude of others have posted the faulty data that they're using to claim jobs saved or created for months. It's breathtaking that he's still using the metric that his own White House recently said wasn't valid. No, the stimulus bill has been proven an utter failure on all counts.

Obama is saying that jobs will be his #1 focus in 2010. Um...where was this urge to work on jobs in 2009, when it was initially needed? Should we be comforted that he's coming around after a whole year, kind of a better-late-than-never philosophy? Seems to be how he wants to handle terrorism. Anyway, while we're on the subject of top legislative priorities, what happened to health care? I seem to recall a whole lot of angst about passing DemCare before the Christmas recess because it was so damned important.

Ah, there's a quick little insert about wanting another 'jobs bill'. Get ready for Son of Porkulus!

Now he's pledging $30 billion for small business credit loans. Wasn't that what TARP was supposed to do?

He's touting the idea of tax credits for businesses that hire new people. Why can't he figure out that one-time injections of money do absolutely nothing to change long-term behavior? All of his bailouts have failed, and all of the 'cash for...' programs have failed. Oh sure, they might boost sales temporarily, but once the stimulus dollars dry up, so do the sales. On top of that, a steep decline is usually found at that point, too. It's a false promise and a faulty method.

I agree 100% with his suggestion that we need more safe, clean nuclear power plants, and that we need to open up new offshore oil and natural gas development. Amen! Unfortunately, I don't believe for a second that he'll follow through. Dems have a 100% record of opposing precisely those measures. I sincerely hope he follows through, but I'll be shocked.

'Overwhelming scientific evidence' for climate change? You've got to be kidding me! That one even got a chuckle from audience. Mr. President, did you forget Copenhagen and East Anglia University? Sheesh.

Nice self-deprecating joke about taking on health care - that he didn't take it on because it was good politics. Does this mean he's finally hearing the American people? Nah, he's still pushing for DemCare. They just haven't figured out a new strategy to take over the health care system yet. He also spouts a whole lot of old and recycled talking points that are not true. Bring down deficit by $1 trillion over next two decades? Puh-lease. Doesn't the CBO only figure these bills for 10 years? And didn't they also say it would actually grow the deficit if you factor in the real world (meaning, factoring out the fantasy assumptions they threw in there)? Obama says that he didn't explain his plan well enough to the American people. No, sir, you explained it just fine, we just didn't want it. What you're proposing is, in fact, worse than the status quo. You ask if anyone has any better ideas...as a matter of fact, the GOP just re-presented their plan today. Take a look.

Eh, I've had enough. This is a bunch of tripe, a semi-bitter rant by a man who is floundering and knows it. He has no real leadership qualities, and he has no executive experience to speak of, even after a year in the White House. All he knows is how to speak rhetorically and agitate the differences between groups of people. More Bush-blaming, more Republican-bashing, more class warfare, more hammer-the-rich, more of the same campaign rhetoric he's been offering for the past two and a half years. That's all he did tonight.

I'll post more analysis as I come across good stuff.

There's my two cents.