Nathan Britt, Writer
By Nathan Britt
The President’s State of the Union address is always a platform for empty words and sullen promises. The tradition was continued again this year.
President Obama made a very “election-year” speech. Fluffy rhetoric floweth freely from the quill of his speech writers. His speech writers are quite adept at making what should be a 15 minute speech drag on for over an hour. In fairness, this is done almost out of necessity. If he does not touch on certain points he gets attacked for not caring enough about a certain issue. Everyone needs their plug. These things are always way too long. Always.
Obama’s previous speeches have been a little more aggressive. He toned this one down and tried to play the part of the cool headed, cooperative Democrat while the Republicans have loud squabbles about their nomination process. He managed this with nice, completely unrealistic proposals. Proposing a financial crimes department? We already have that in the FBI and Secret Service. Come on. All of his proposals sounded great (at face value for an average person). But if even one of them is truly implemented, I will cut off my arm with a plastic fork. Congress will not be compliant with the majority of his proposals. It was a great show speech but lacked in legitimate substance. It was politics at its finest.
As for my opinion about what he said: the Libertarian in me cringed at the thought of even more regulation of the free market. Obama casually twisted his words to underhandedly blame the economic crisis on the successful capitalists and Wall Street. Then, he introduced more regulations that would curb the big, bad powers that be in Capitalism. He also advocated for tax cuts (YES!). Unfortunately shortly before, he wanted changes in the tax code that would make the higher income citizens pay a 30% tax rate. That is an absolutely insane rate to me. I am personally an advocate for a flat tax rate (but that is another story). The worst thing is that he is proposing spending (money we don’t have) without any sort of timely plan to reducing the debt. That just does not make sense. However, I was happy with his thoughts on the military. Obama was very polished and well spoken as usual. He is clearly running for reelection. Therefore, I don’t see him getting anything accomplished in the next few months.
As for Mitch Daniels’s GOP response, I thought it was appropriate but way too long and boring. Daniels was more straightforward than Obama but elaborated too much. In comparison to previous GOP responses, I think it was eons better. That still does not make me want to watch it though.
Overall: too much fluff, not enough substance. Same story it is every year.
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