Wednesday, January 26, 2011

State of the Union Address: "Winning the Future" ... (wtf)

President Obama titled his 2011 State of the Union Address: "Winning the Future", or more briefly ... 'WTF'.

Some nuggets from Obama's speech:

"At stake right now is not who wins the next election. After all, we just had an election."

WTF ... Of course the next election is at stake.  I'm sure that the President wishes the next election wasn't at stake, but that doesn't make it true.  The elections of 2010 were a giant mandate for limited government and the President is the enemy of limited government.

"We're the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices, the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers, of Google and Facebook."

WTF ... Facebook? Really? Facebook is the technological beacon of America?  Seriously, that's the best you could come up with?

"So tonight, I am proposing that, starting this year, we freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years..."

WTF ... Apparently, the discretionary 'spending' freeze must exclude all the discretionary 'investment' programs that he announced immediately after proposing the freeze ... like high-speed monorails, high-speed internet, electric cars, biomedical research, clean-energy research, etc.  The problem is not that those are necessarily bad ideas.  The problem is that they should be pursued by private enterprise not by the government.  If the country needs a monorail, the market will bear that out.

"... Now, this would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade"

WTF ... Let's ignore Obama's obvious contradiction regarding discretionary spending.  400 billion over a decade?  That this is a triviality relative to the deficit he is proposing to reduce.  Even if we take Obama at his word on this claim, ~40 billion per year in deficit reduction compared to a 1.29 trillion dollar 2010 deficit is barely 3%.  A drop in the bucket.

"... the only way to tackle our deficit is to cut excessive spending wherever we find it – in domestic spending, defense spending, health care spending, and spending through tax breaks and loopholes."

WTF ... 'spending through tax breaks'?  This short phrase provides a dramatic insight into the world view of the President.  He considers tax breaks to be government spending.  In other words, your money belongs to the government, and Obama wants to cut back on your allowance.  While it's humorous to consider that Obama would actually cut spending in domestic programs or in health care, I do take him at his word when he says he will cut defense spending and increase taxes.

To summarize Obama's new language:
  • A tax increase is now a "spending reduction"
  • A spending increase is now an "investment"

So, buckle up. Obama is planning a lot of "spending reductions" along with increased "investments".  Gee, it sounds so reasonable when put that way.  Doublespeak is so fun, isn't it Mr. President?

"We do big things"

I actually believe Obama on this one.  Unfortunately, by 'we', Obama is referring to the American government rather than the American people.

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