It’s Thursday, January 28, 2010 and there’s no “Death to this Sort of Thing” this week. Instead, we talk about President Obama’s first State of the Union speech. For those that dislike the political analysis, you might want to skip today’s blog.
Great speech, Mr President. If only they gave Nobel Prizes for great speeches.
Okay, with some caveats, there are a few things I’m in concurrence with the President on. We’ll go with those first.
The first thing was his proposal to give the $30 billion paid back by bailed out banks to smaller, local banks to foster lending to small businesses. Setting aside for a minute that it’s improper for the federal government to give money to banks, this is a good idea. I personally would rather see the money that was paid back given back to the people who loaned it in the first place. This of course being the US taxpayer. If memory serves, this was promised. Yes, I distinctly recall being told that I’d be paid back.
But by using the correct dictionary, I can see how giving money to small banks to foster lending to small businesses could be seen as paying me back.
This next one made me rewind in that I was sure I heard wrong. The President wants to ELIMINATE capital gains tax on small businesses. A democrat wanting to eliminate a tax on anything? I gottah check the book of Revelations, but that may be a sign of the Apocalypse.
It’s still a good idea though. Letting small businesses keep more of the dough they earn will get that dough moving through the economy. It’ll be interesting to see how they come up with what constitutes a small business.
The resulting tax revenues lost however have to be replaced somehow or… wait for it… government spending has to be reduced BY THAT SAME AMOUNT.
Right on time. The Elf who will spit cider in my ear.
Next up, the President calls to end tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas. I’m curious as to what this means. Surely no company gets tax breaks for sending jobs overseas. I’m all for punishing companies who do this, but the problem is how do you strip a tax break from an outfit that’s otherwise illegible for it, based on whether or not part of their work force is overseas. Then we have the problem of increased costs of production that invariably gets passed on to the consumer. It’s a good idea on paper, but goes to demonstrate that this president doesn’t have a good grasp of how business works.
He wants a jobs bill on his desk without delay. I’m glad he didn’t put a specific deadline on this. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that fast legislation is bad legislation. We need a bill that works with the ways jobs are created, not one that focuses on short-term, public works projects. Eliminating the capital gains tax on small businesses will be an important catalyst, but I do rather like the idea of tax credits to companies that hire new employees (I would suggest adding companies that re-hire laid off employees too) and those who raise wages. The trouble is, how do we pay for that?
Moving into energy policy, the President wants more nuclear power plants. Fine by me. Streamline the permitting and certification process and make it harder for the enviro-taliban to jam up progress with endless, frivolous lawsuits.
The same is true for his call for new offshore gas/oil development. I was amazed at the flip-flop here. If memory serves, he was steadfastly against this during the campaign. Reducing our dependence on foreign oil reduces our need for a presence in parts of the world where the US is seen as an enemy. Plus, this (once going) shows OPEC that they’ll now have to compete with US domestic production. No downside here.
I concur with his call for bio fuels and clean coal energy. The latter flies in the face of some of his supporters who say that clean coal technology is a myth. It’s not a myth, but rather a goal and with all such goals is achieved when actively pursued. This has to be done in parallel with developing alternate, renewable sources of energy. These aren’t mutually-exclusive goals.
He then hit on the best way to do this by making clean energy profitable. What worries me here is that they’ll try to do this by subsidizing otherwise unprofitable methods rather than funding the necessary research. I’m also worried that they’ll try to do this by making existing production unprofitable. This is a critical element in economic recovery in that fuel/energy costs effects every single consumer good. If you monkey around with costs, you’re having direct, immediate impact on the price of consumer goods. I say go for it, but do it carefully, cautiously and with one eye fixed on what we’re doing to energy costs.
Moving on, the President wants to see exports double over the next five years. No argument from me here. I would have liked more talk on the how part of this, particularly the part about how he wants to help farmers export more of their goods. Global trade is a hugely complex thing and I regret not paying closer attention to Doc whenever he held forth on this. The President did however (and I think without meaning to) hit on an important point; Other countries are busily working on building their economies. It’s gonna be tough to get them to accept trade agreements that run counter to this goal. Clearly defined trade agreements with quantifiable targets is the way to go here.
Next up, I was hoping that the President would have talked more about education. He talked a lot about making college more available and more affordable but this doesn’t solve the most pressing problem where education is concerned. We’ve got more citizens who are functionally illiterate than are without healthcare coverage. This is killing us. I’m all for making a college education more attainable, but I think improving literacy will serve us better than having more rocket scientist.
I think we need to spend more dough on K-12 education and (yes, this is an area where the federal government has a compelling interest) implement national standards. If your kid can’t read, write and do math at a 3rd grade level, they don’t pass the 3rd grade. No Child Left Behind was a good idea, horribly implemented. We need a national standard. No, shut up. This is a national problem requiring a national solution.
The President also wants to end bank subsidies on student loans and give a $10K a year tax credit to families for each kid in college. This too is a good idea, but what about that single mom who needs that $10K up front to get her kid through the door? All this talk of tax credits is great, but remember, that doesn’t mean your income tax refund will go up by $10k It’s gonna be one of them “add lines 12 – 17 together and subtract line 9. Enter this amount or 10,000, whichever is less.
Next up, the president wants to end the don’t ask don’t tell policy for the US military. While I agree with this, he can want it in Thames up to the neck. Changing the UCMJ is within the purview of Congress and I’m thinking that this is gonna be almost as successful as the healthcare reform bill.
Now, on to the stuff I disagree with…
Overwhelming scientific evidence on global warming? Look, you can be overwhelmed with it if you want. I’ve long been suspicious of this crap and recent revelations have shown the “evidence” to be tainted at best and fabricated at worse. If we’re gonna really, really really tank our whole economy, I need “overwhelming scientific evidence” that’s as pure as the driven snow and not refuted by anyone.
And no! I don’t agree with the premise that it’s the right thing to do anyway. Dammit! CO2 is not a poison! You’re wanting us to waste time, money and resources reducing our output of stuff that’s NOT HARMFUL in the first place. Cut back on maple syrup or something. That way you’re only messing up breakfast. You want to do something useful, cut our sulfur dioxide emissions. That shit is actually killing stuff.
More affordable mortgages? No! Dammit! That’s what started us on this road. We need RESPONSIBLE lending. No more $150K mortgages to some schlep making less than $30K a year. Yeah, it’s not fair that some people don’t get to own a house. It’s even more unfair to expect us to bail out banks that went bust, trying to foster this dipshit sense of fairness. Barney Frank should go to prison for that shit.
He wants to explain healthcare reform better? 7,000+ pages of legislation can’t be explained. We came within one more back-room deal from having this garbage shoved down our throats. No sir, we don’t trust you on this anymore. As far as I’m concerned, that dog won’t hunt.
Oh, and the republicans already DID let you know how to fix healthcare. The democrats are gonna have to listen now, but I’m more inclined just to let this die and let the next president get the golden ring on this.
Finally, the President clearly showed that he doesn’t have the first clue about war. He basically promised to pull all our combat troops out by this August.
Excuse me, but what if the war isn’t over by them? Wars do not simply end. They are won or lost. If we got a plan to have victory by August, then yippee! We need to get ‘er done, but if we’re just gonna fold ‘em up and split while the enemy still has the will and means to resist, then we lose and at best will have to go BACK in and finish up.. No sir, we need to stay there until we’ve won.
The rest of the speech was so much blah, blah, blah, typical Obama speak. Next time, just turn the teleprompters around and let us read it ourselves.
So what’s my take on our state? I think we could be worse. Biden could be president. I also think we’re gonna be better. It might take a year, maybe three, but no matter how inept, Obama can’t kill this country.
I’m out of time or I would pick apart the almost equally inane response by the republicans. Maybe tomorrow.