Posted on 02/26/2009 7:38:40 PM PST by seanmerc
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama was recently accused of being too much of a downer about the economy.
Well, he certainly made up for that this week with his highly optimistic "yes-we-can" campaign-style speech to Congress.
"We will rebuild, we will recover and the United States will emerge stronger than ever," Obama declared. "It is time for America to lead again." His upbeat remarks in a 52-minute State of the Union-style address to a joint session of Congress frequently brought the lawmakers to their feet as they roared their approval.
The nationally televised event put the changing face of America on full display, with the first-ever black president in the spotlight and the followup Republican response from Louisiana’s conservative Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has East Indian heritage.
Jindal railed that Obama’s blueprint for recovery will grow the size of government, eventually increase taxes and saddle the government with debt. Look who’s talking! Jindal, an up-and-coming GOP leader, had a tough job carrying water for all the failings of the Bush administration.
But it was the president’s night -- it always is, no matter what the party.
Obama did not have to tell a worried nation that "the state of our economy is in crisis" but he predicted "slowly but surely confidence will return and our economy will recover."
In his professorial-preacher manner, he declared that the "day of reckoning has arrived." He peppered his comments with the assertive "I" as he described his plans to tackle the problems of energy, health care and education. He was in full control of the evening.
Obama also threw a couple of bones to the defiant Republicans (only a three GOP senators voted for the Obama stimulus package). But he won standing applause when he referred to tax cuts and more benefits for small business. Obama clearly broke with the Ronald Reagan philosophy that government is the problem, not the solution. Many Republicans have also turned that page, considering their embrace of federal bailouts for Wall Street in the waning days of the Bush administration.
Obama’s tough medicine includes stricter credit rules for banks and barring profligate use of taxpayer money for bonuses, limos and lavish vacations and other luxuries for tone-deaf investment institutions.
His speech was devoted almost entirely to the financial meltdown.
He noted "the impact of this recession is real and it is everywhere," and warned some "worthy priorities" will have to be sacrificed.
"I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves, that says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity," he said.
While brushing past big foreign-policy issues such as the nuclear hopes of Iran and Korea and the perennial Arab-Israeli tinderbox, Obama reaffirmed that "the United States of America does not torture."
Torture and denial of due process to military suspects has tarnished our goodwill in the international world.
Obama also gave himself three more months in his timetable for a troop withdrawal from Iraq, making it 19 months instead of his promised 16 months. This adds up to a longer stay in a war that we never should have started.
I fear Obama’s failure to learn the lessons of the past may destine us to a new Viet Nam in Afghanistan, where he has started a troop surge of 17,000 Americans and more to come. I’m unsure how he expects to prevail where the British and Russians have failed in the past.
The president said his forthcoming budget will reflect the "stark reality of what we have inherited: a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis and a costly recession."
He also said his budget will reflect the hidden costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military operations that have been financed over the past seven years by improvised funding requests to Congress. Obama’s agenda starts with jobs and he promised that every American who has lost a job will receive unemployment benefits and help with health care coverage.
The blueprint for recovery sounds Utopian. But why not aim high?
It is. I stole it, so I can’t take credit for it. There sure are some great photo-shoppers operating on FR.
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