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Roundup on Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address

Posted 25 Jan 2012 in Barack Obama, class warfare, lies, politics

Mark Twain famously remarked there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. It’s too bad Twain didn’t live to hear an Obama “State of the Union” speech, he would have said that there are actually four kind of lies.

In an attempt to lure back disillusioned Democrats who are frustrated by Obama’s apparent failures in office, last night’s speech offered a distraction loaded with the Democrat Party’s tried-and-true class warfare and agitprop. It was as though Obama was channeling Groucho Marx: “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”  His performance in the well of the House of Representatives was just a long, drawn-out way of saying, “Don’t look at my record of failure and the steady encroachment on your liberties that is occurring under my imperial presidency. Just look at those evil rich white men over there! Let’s go get ‘em!”

And as long as Obama continues to play his Pied Piper’s tune of envy and divisiveness, there’s a large percentage of Democrat lemmings who will be glad to overlook three years of ineptitude in the hope that four more years of the Obama status quo will somehow be different than the previous four.

Everything about the Obama administration at this point is just more of the same failures over and over. More power grabs, most unconstitutional “executive actions,” more anti-American radicalism, and above all, more partisanship. Even this speech sounded as though it was slapped together from last year’s diatribe:

Much has already been written this morning which fact-checks and deconstructs Obama’s envy-driven class warfare campaign speech masquerading as a State of the Union address (full text here). Rather than fisk the entire speech and restate what several other very gifted writers have already said, I’ll collect a few excerpts here for your review (be sure to click the links to read the entire articles).

John Hayward: “Obama Misquotes Lincoln”

During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, President Obama quoted Abraham Lincoln as follows:

I’m a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more. That’s why my education reform offers more competition, and more control for schools and States. That’s why we’re getting rid of regulations that don’t work. That’s why our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a Government program.

(Emphasis mine.)  Leaving aside the tortured logic of describing a government takeover of health insurance, with the practical effect (and secret ultimate goal) of driving private companies out of the industry altogether, as “a reformed private market,” or a top-down federally controlled public education system as containing any meaningful amount of “competition,” Obama is deliberately misquoting Lincoln, in a way that completely changes the meaning of what the Great Emancipator said.

Charles C. Johnson at Big Government got the actual Lincoln quote from distinguished professor Harry Jaffa of Claremont McKenna College, who was able to recite it from memory.  The full quote is easily found on the Web, and presumably could have been located by President Obama’s immense royal retinue, if they had been interested in anything other than propaganda.

Here is what Lincoln actually said:

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.

Obama didn’t merely paraphrase Lincoln’s words.  He completely inverted their meaning.  The government isn’t supposed to usurp the freedom of citizens when it thinks it can handle elements of their lives better than they can.  That’s a recipe for “soft tyranny,” since the ruling class gets to decide whether it can handle any given endeavor better than the people.  As Obama has demonstrated, the ruling class will make, and cling to, these judgments in defiance of all evidence to the contrary.  He did just promise to double down on his solar-energy boondoggles, didn’t he? [read more…]

 

Calvin Woodward — Associated Press: “FACT CHECK: Obama pushes plans that flopped before”

It was a wish list, not a to-do list.

President Barack Obama laid out an array of plans in his State of the Union speech as if his hands weren’t so tied by political realities. There can be little more than wishful thinking behind his call to end oil industry subsidies — something he could not get through a Democratic Congress, much less today’s divided Congress, much less in this election year.

And there was more recycling, in an even more forbidding climate than when the ideas were new: He pushed for an immigration overhaul that he couldn’t get past Democrats, permanent college tuition tax credits that he asked for a year ago, and familiar discouragements for companies that move overseas.

A look at Obama’s rhetoric Tuesday night and how it fits with the facts and political circumstances:

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OBAMA: “We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising.”

THE FACTS: This is at least Obama’s third run at stripping subsidies from the oil industry. Back when fellow Democrats formed the House and Senate majorities, he sought $36.5 billion in tax increases on oil and gas companies over the next decade, but Congress largely ignored the request. He called again to end such tax breaks in last year’s State of the Union speech. And he’s now doing it again, despite facing a wall of opposition from Republicans who want to spur domestic oil and gas production and oppose tax increases generally. [read more…]

 

Funny, Obama left out any mention of the $500 million dollars that was flushed down the toilet by his administration on the bankrupt Solyndra solar company. Now is NOT the time to “double-down” on such foolhardy choices. Our government has repeatedly demonstrated its poor judgment and shouldn’t be allowed to continue picking winners and losers, nor should it attempt to continue funding unproven industries with taxpayer dollars. Government just needs to get out of the way (i.e. reduce taxes and needless regulations) and let our free market work as it should.

 

Barry Rubin: “My Response Discovers Some Curious Insights and Strange Formulations”

…“From this position of strength, we’ve begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Ten thousand of our troops have come home. Twenty-three thousand more will leave by the end of this summer. This transition to Afghan lead will continue, and we will build an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, so that it is never again a source of attacks against America.”

Again, Obama tells an unnecessary lie. The withdrawal from Iraq is a correct move but hardly puts the United States in a position of strength, especially given Obama’s deep cuts on the military. And of course the end of the war in Afghanistan was planned long before any withdrawal in Iraq; indeed it was basically planned during his predecessor’s term.

…And then he concludes with this statement, remarkable for being so directly opposite to the truth:

“America is back. Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

Wow, first, America is NOT back because Obama has reduced U.S. influence, leverage, and activism. Second, who has done more than Obama to assert that U.S. power is in decline? And, third, this fact is totally obvious to leaders in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Obama, however, is always one for doubling down on his lies or errors. (You choose the word you prefer.):

“That’s not the message we get from leaders around the world, all of whom are eager to work with us. That’s not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin; from Capetown to Rio; where opinions of America are higher than they’ve been in years.”

The truth is generally the exact opposite and even in the polls one can see this. Obama can be daring because he knows the media won’t bash him for saying stuff like this. [read more…]

 

Mike Brownfield: “Obama’s State of Omission”

…The speech was notable for the items he did not mention, including many of the failed spending programs and policies he undertook over the past three years, the foreign policy and defense challenges he has exacerbated, and the economic actions he failed to take that would have created jobs and spurred economic growth.

Governor Mitch Daniels (R-IN), who delivered the response to the State of the Union address, shined a light on those titanic omissions — the state of America’s economic and fiscal crises, the President’s promise to fix them, and his failure to do anything but make matters worse, all amid a trillion dollars in stimulus spending and a rapidly expanding bureaucracy:

The percentage of Americans with a job is at the lowest in decades. One in five men of prime working age, and nearly half of all persons under 30, did not go to work today.

In three short years, an unprecedented explosion of spending, with borrowed money, has added trillions to an already unaffordable national debt. And yet, the President has put us on a course to make it radically worse in the years ahead. The federal government now spends one of every four dollars in the entire economy; it borrows one of every three dollars it spends.

Apart from the truth about the depths of America’s unemployment crisis and the scope of government spending, the President barely mentioned his signature legislative item, Obamacare, which is facing a Supreme Court constitutional challenge; Social Security and the country’s entitlement crisis; his decision to say “no” to the Keystone XL pipeline and the jobs it would bring with it; the Solyndra scandal and the failures of his green energy initiatives; the illegality of his appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Board and the National Labor Relations Board; the Senate’s failure to pass a budget for 1,000 days under the leadership of his own party; the high costs that his additional regulations bring with them; his party’s opposition to free trade agreements; the fraudulent elections in Russia; the ongoing collapse of the Euro; warnings about his decision to slash defense spending; the remaining challenges in Afghanistan; and the violence that has erupted in Iraq after the departure of U.S. troops. [read more…]

John Stossel: “The Real State of the Union”

Has Barack Obama learned nothing in three years? During his State of the Union address, he promised “a blueprint for an economy.” But economies are crushed by blueprints. An economy is really nothing more than people participating in an unfathomably complex spontaneous network of exchanges aimed at improving their material circumstances. It can’t even be diagrammed, much less planned. And any attempt at it will come to grief.

Politicians like Obama believe they are the best judges of how we should conduct our lives. Of course a word like “blueprint” would occur to the president. He, like most who want his job, aspires to be the architect of a new society.

But we who love our lives and our freedom say: No, thanks. We need no social architect. We need liberty under law. That’s it.

Obama — and most Republicans are no different — doesn’t understand the real liberal revolution that transformed civilization. The crux of that revolution is that law should define general visible rules of just conduct, applicable to all, with no eye to particular outcomes. In other words, as Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek taught, the only “purpose” of law is to enable us all to pursue our individual purposes in peace.

If Obama really wanted, as he says, a society in which “everybody gets a fair shot,” he would work to shrink government so that the sphere of freedom could expand. Instead, he expands government and raises taxes on wealthier people, as though giving politicians more money were a way to make society better. Instead, the interventionist state rigs the game on behalf of special interests.

What should Obama have said in his speech? Here’s what I wish he’d said:

Our debt has passed $15 trillion. It will reach Greek levels in just 10 years.

But if we make reasonable cuts to what government spends, our economy can grow us out of our debt. Cutting doesn’t just make economic sense, it is also the moral thing to do. Government is best which governs least. [read more…]

 

 James Pethokoukis: “11 things Obama didn’t tell you about tax fairness last night”

President Barack Obama talked a lot about taxes and fairness in his State of the Union speech last night. Like this bit:

But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. … We don’t begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich. …Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than a million dollars a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes.

Are wealthier Americans really not paying their fair share? Here are some numbers on income inequality:

1. The top 1 percent pay 36.7 percent of federal income taxes and earn 16.9 percent of adjusted gross income (as of 2009).

2. The top 0.1 percent pay 17.1 percent of taxes and earn 7.8 percent of adjusted gross income.

3. The average income tax rate for the top 1 percent is 24 percent. The bottom 50 percent? Just 1.85 percent.

4. The bottom 50 percent pay just 2.3 percent of income taxes.

5. Buffett chose to leave most of his fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, avoiding a 55 percent estate tax.

6. Buffett actually pays 50 percent tax since capital gains and dividends taxes are a double tax on corporate income. [read more…]

 

About the only thing that was truthful about last night’s campaign speech was when Obama admitted that his economic plan amounts to class warfare. That’s the reason why he keeps repeating the word “fairness” as if he was a broken record.

I’m disgusted with this dishonest notion that the rich somehow aren’t paying their “fair share” because investment income is taxed at the capital gains tax rate instead of the same percentage as personal income. If we’re really going to be all about fairness, then we should ask the HALF of Americans who pay no Federal income tax at all to chip in something! Those are the people who truly aren’t paying their fair share, yet are reaping all the benefits provided by those of us who do pay taxes.

I’m dismayed that there are so many people still following this charlatan and believing what he says even though his behavior over the past three years has repeatedly proven their trust to be misplaced.

Our president has already admitted that Americans are not better off than we were four years ago. So why would we allow Obama another four years to continue leading our nation further down the path of destruction? We’ve seen the historical results of the policies he is advocating. Obama’s so-called “blueprint for an economy that’s built to last” will NOT work. Just ask citizens of the former Soviet Union how well Marxism worked for them.

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RELATED: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels offered the Republican response…

Highlights (emphasis added):

“The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy. It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.”

So jacking up consumer utility bills in the name of abating “global warming” would be ok? Sorry, Mitch, but that’s a fail.

“Decades ago, for instance, we could afford to send millionaires pension checks and pay medical bills for even the wealthiest among us. Now, we can’t, so the dollars we have should be devoted to those who need them most.”

This part is dead wrong, as it falls into the Democrat trap that Social Security is just another entitlement paid out like Welfare rather than being a fund into which people have paid throughout their working lives.

“No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others.”

That nails the heart of the matter: the only way for Obama to hold on to power is to divide Americans against one another rather than unite us as a country. His entire regime is based on envy masquerading as “fairness” and is as morally bankrupt as the Occupy movement he encouraged.

“2012 must be the year we prove the doubters wrong. The year we strike out boldly not merely to avert national bankruptcy but to say to a new generation that America is still the world’s premier land of opportunity. Republicans will speak for those who believe in the dignity and capacity of the individual citizen; who believe that government is meant to serve the people rather than supervise them; who trust Americans enough to tell them the plain truth about the fix we are in, and to lay before them a specific, credible program of change big enough to meet the emergency we are facing.

We will advance our positive suggestions with confidence, because we know that Americans are still a people born to liberty. There is nothing wrong with the state of our Union that the American people, addressed as free-born, mature citizens, cannot set right. Republicans in 2012 welcome all our countrymen to a program of renewal that rebuilds the dream for all, and makes our ‘city on a hill’ shine once again.”

Whoever the GOP puts forward this year, we must unite behind them and propose solutions which will help our nation prosper while safeguarding the liberty of ALL Americans.

Posted by FullMetalPatriot
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT

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