Obama's SOU speech tonight

@RABEL222,

RABEL222 wrote:

Dident the president say something about cutting business taxes. How will he square this with public works projects when we are already short of public funds. The president speaks with a forked tongue allright but its not a liberal one its a conserative one.

He was talking about broadening the tax base - which means charging less but getting rid of a ton of deductions. It equals out pretty well in the end - and will save money on accountants and lawyers...

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

Re: the speech, I thought it was pretty good and he had some deft political moves. The 5-year spending freeze is just credible enough to make him look serious about the budget deficit and his call for further investment in infrastructure is past due.

He kneecapped Boehner by being overly kind to him at several points in the speech. His jokes were effective and well-timed. Overall a good performance.

I think the crowd mixing thing may catch on. Legislators were chatting each other up during the speech and engaging in mini-debate - never a bad thing.

Cycloptichorn

2 Replies

@mysteryman,

mm, The money will come from the job increases that will grow from the WPA program workers who first earn money to spend. This in turn will increase demand for more consumer goods, and companies will begin to hire to meet demand. It's a very simple economic principle that anybody with Econ 101 understands.

Think WWII when most of the income was earned by working for defense and not much else. That pent up demand for consumer goods grew by leaps and bounds after WWII, and the economic growth from there made our country the economic superpower of the world. The fact that the government was smart enough to fund our returning soldiers college education was the key for our economic growth. All that spending by government paid off; and it will again.

What's been happening the past several years is our governments providing extended unemployment benefits to more and more Americans - which is the right thing to do; we should take care of our own citizens when in need. That's what smart governments around the world does; support its citizens.

We can't continue on this trend in the growth of unemployment benefits; it is not sustainable. It's up to our government to create jobs in this environment, and the public works to improve our infrastructure is the best way of kick-starting our economy. No economy can grow without a good infrastructure to support a growing economy. That's also Econ 101.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Re: the speech, I thought it was pretty good

It was OK, but nothing special.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

We can't continue on this trend in the growth of unemployment benefits; it is not sustainable. It's up to our government to create jobs in this environment, and the public works to improve our infrastructure is the best way of kick-starting our economy.

Maybe, but not without reducing the size of government and not without cutting government programs and spending first. As it stands right now, Obama wants another gigantic spending bill that we don't have the money for.

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@H2O MAN,

Quote:

This whole dream about high-speed rail is nothing but a payoff to unions in order to put construction workers to work building rail lines,
joining unions, paying union dues, and allowing unions to make massive political contributions to candidates. Democrat candidates

No, it is a call for America to catch up to the modern world when it comes to transportation. Unfortunately, we are way behind and we have no idea where the money will come from.

High Speed Rail makes a lot of sense so far as clean air and energy dependence goes, if we were to electrify the system. I would feel much better about buying natural gas from Canada then I do about buying crude from the mid-east and corrupt African dictatorships. The Canadians are pretty wacky folks, but at least they dont want to end us, and they are willing to spend the money we hand them on American products and they come to visit now and then and they bring their wallets with them.

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@H2O MAN,

H2O MAN wrote:

One thing is certain, teleprompter dependent PrezBO does have
a silver forked tongue and a damn good team of speech writers.

non sequitur, dumb ****.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Gosh but you have a uniquely intense view of politics.

He "kneecapped" Boehner?

Is that in the sense of punishing him, or putting him out of action?

Since it wasn't a forum in which Boehner was to have an opportunity to speak, what was the point? Carryover into future debates?

A gratuitous shot...or maybe just a compliment?

I guess he was being overly kind to Biden too.

The 5 year spending freeze is a sham in terms of deficit reduction which you seem to recognize.

If after my daughter got married, my wife went on a mad spending spree to furnish their home, but then promised me she wouldn't spend any more money this year than she did last year, I wouldn't find it a credible effort to reduce our debt.

Americans aren't going to find Obama's 5 year spending freeze sham credible either ---- unless, of course, they are one of his senseless true believers.

I don't expect the mixed seating to be repeated, but it did seem to cut way down on the Dems acting like jack-in-the-boxes; so that was a plus for it.

1 Reply

Boehner looked like he was in pain. He was thinking: "when is this damn thing going to end so I can down a couple drinks."

It was interesting to listen to Ryan. He lacked the guts to mention his goals of privatizing part of social security and eliminating Medicare and Medicaid. He is a genuine POS who only cares about the wealthy.

He said those near retirement would be protected. Protected from what?

He talked about how his plan would produce jobs, but doesn't say how this would be done.

1 Reply

@Advocate,

The GOP keeps promising to produce jobs and cut taxes, but they never explain how. That should be a clue for Americans, but they just don't "get it."

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Here is an interesting proposal by a Texas State legislator, and he is a repub.

http://radio.woai.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=119078&article=8090354

Quote:

Salaries of state elected officials ranging from Governor Perry to members of the Bexar County Commissioners Court would have to be slashed drastically, under a unique proposal introduced in the Legislature by State Rep. Lyle Larson (R-San Antonio), 1200 WOAI news has learned.

“I would like to cap the salary of any elected official in the state of Texas to what the average school teacher makes in the state," Larson told 1200 WOAI news.

I wonder if this will go anywhere.

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@Cycloptichorn,

I dont have any accountants or lawyers. More laws for the benefit of the wealthy.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Gosh but you have a uniquely intense view of politics.

He "kneecapped" Boehner?

Is that in the sense of punishing him, or putting him out of action?

No, but it forestalls criticism in the minds of a lot of people. Even after the last election, only a minority of people in America even know who Boehner is. For a lot of moderate/not that interested in politics viewers, it's their first introduction to the guy on the national stage - and Obama was really nice to him.

Makes Obama's image improve and also makes it more difficult for Boehner to attack Obama in the future. Initial impressions set the tone in many people's mind. It was a shrewd political move on his part, one that cost him nothing and can pay benefits later on.

Quote:

Since it wasn't a forum in which Boehner was to have an opportunity to speak, what was the point? Carryover into future debates?

Pretty much

Quote:

A gratuitous shot...or maybe just a compliment?

I guess he was being overly kind to Biden too.

He didn't mention Biden's propensity for making idiotic statements this year, so yeah.

Quote:

The 5 year spending freeze is a sham in terms of deficit reduction which you seem to recognize.

If after my daughter got married, my wife went on a mad spending spree to furnish their home, but then promised me she wouldn't spend any more money this year than she did last year, I wouldn't find it a credible effort to reduce our debt.

Americans aren't going to find Obama's 5 year spending freeze sham credible either ---- unless, of course, they are one of his senseless true believers.

Well, it will save some money - they quoted 400 billion over 5 years. Both you and I know that's not enough to balance our budgets but it's not nothing either. I think that it's fair to say that it is a political move to pre-empt larger cuts by Republicans, tho.

Regarding what 'Americans find credible,' polling shows that they mostly agree with the Democrats that taxes should go up on the wealthy and that defense spending should be cut, while SS and Medicare are left alone, and that the gov't should be spending more on job creation. So I don't really think we want to go down that route.

Quote:

I don't expect the mixed seating to be repeated, but it did seem to cut way down on the Dems acting like jack-in-the-boxes; so that was a plus for it.

As I predicted earlier, a lot of State delegations sat together. I do believe we will see more of it in the future.

Cycloptichorn

2 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

FreeZing current spending at current levels for the next 5 years is not on the list of things the polls tell you Americans want.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

FreeZing current spending at current levels for the next 5 years is not on the list of things the polls tell you Americans want.

I didn't say it was.

But Americans do say that they want SOME cuts in government spending, without specifying where they are at. It's not incompatible with polling results.

Cycloptichorn

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@blueveinedthrobber,

over your head, little prick.

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@Cycloptichorn,

You could almost see the discomfort Boehner was in when Obama spoke well of him and his family - as if put in the corner with a dunce cap.

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What a long aria of hot air, good rethorics but no solid suggestions.

1 Reply

@HexHammer,

"Hot air?" You need to explain what you mean; generalities says absolutely nothing!

FYI, if you fail to understand the basics of debate, why bother posting that says nothing?

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

"Hot air?" You need to explain what you mean; generalities says absolutely nothing!

FYI, if you fail to understand the basics of debate, why bother posting that says nothing?

Countless of people have good intentions, and will state how they want to do this and that for the common good of all, just that it usually never works.
Ofcause very simple minded and naive people will belive in these good intentions, and will regard the demagogue higher than the boring realist that only will tell the naive and simpleminded unglamorous things.

1 Reply

Obama's SOU speech tonight

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