The Statist of the Union Address
In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Obama did what he does best: blame others to divert attention from his own failings on the economy. Every ill we have, per him, is because of a bill of his Congress won't pass. Where is that "you lie" when you need him?
Democrats closed the Kabuki Theater called the "Jobs Council," an Obama-appointed group of business CEOs that had not met in a year. While unemployment is still very high, Obama recently disbanded the Jobs Council. To be fair, the Council attained its goal of saving one person's job -- last November. Mission accomplished.
His speech started by saying they were cutting spending; then he spent 90% of his talk laying out more spending plans he cleverly calls "investments."
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Obama is not economy friendly. He led the charge on unprecedented government overreach in the form of punishing regulations, spending and intrusion into our lives. Jobs, other than his union supporter's, matter little.
Somali pirate style, he commandeered one-seventh of our economy with ObamaCare. It was recently estimated that the third-rate "Bronze" ObamaCare insurance plan will cost each American family $20,000 per year. Yet he said ObamaCare was already lowering healthcare costs. Remember when he told us, "If you like your healthcare plan you can keep it"? Well, you can't.
He unleashed his EPA to all but kill the coal industry and to hamper oil drilling. Gas prices were $1.65 a gallon when he took office; now they are tickling $4.00 We have an epic U.S. opportunity in natural gas production, so Obama's EPA go after fracking --based on the vast scientific expertise of Matt Damon and other Hollywood knuckleheads.
In spite of Obama's abysmal economic record and with the persuasion of the lapdog media, uninformed voters could not follow the "Three-card Monte" of the Democrats. They reelected him. Why should Obama care if he is not held accountable? He won 303 electoral votes by only doing interviews on sports radio, "ET," "The View," and "Pimp with a Limp."
Obama has Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid with him; together they have a Mike Tyson-level understanding of economics. Cutting spending around them is like inviting your drug dealer to your intervention.
He is a Chicago politician. He thinks that everything in Washington is a zero-sum game. One side wins, the other loses. He has the same view of the economy. If Apple succeeded, the company must have screwed over someone.
Obama only knows politics, and he only has one go-to reaction: campaign mode. He does not persuade with better ideas; he blames and then destroys his enemies. Remember the Boy Scout Romney?
The hypocrisy of a man who has his Nobel Peace Prize on his wall next to his drone kill list is astonishing. His odd enthusiasm for killing with drones, which mystifies the left, speaks to his "destroy others" mentality. A picture recently released by the White House showed Obama firing a shotgun. No doubt he was heroically protecting our country from low-flying skeet.
He applies to politics the business model of Chicago street gangs: destroy rivals to gain turf. But the economy does not work that way. Apple does well with Verizon's success and in spite of AT&T's failure. They depend on each other, with mutually beneficial and enlightened self-interest in a growing economic pie. One person's economic success multiplies into greater wealth for others.
The recession he "inherited," ended July, 2009, months after he was sworn in. Since then we have had the worst economic growth of any so-called recovery in 65 years.
All recessions end. Of the ten recessions of the past 65 years, economic growth for the following three years averaged 4.6%. GDP growth under Obama's "recovery" has registered a tepid 2.2%.
The White House finds it comforting to say that this was a bad recession. But as any sober economist will tell you, the worse the economic downturn, the more robust the recovery (historically 5.9 percent). The difference between 5.9 percent historic growth and Obama's 2.2 percent would mean $1.6 trillion more over three years, or $7,000 per working American.
Al Qaeda could not have done as much damage to the U.S. as this administration has, working to destroy our economy with a morass of entrenched bureaucracies. The terrorists can now retire. They set about to weaken and destroy America, which task is now in the capable hands of the Left.
