Even I couldn't believe how bad this was. The whole idea of President Obama addressing a joint session of Congress with this bilge is downright insulting, considering that joint sessions are normally only used for things like State of the Union speeches or asking Congress to declare war.
Essentially, it was a warmed over campaign speech, except that the president wants what amounts to another $450 billion stimulus giveaway and this time he's laughingly calling it a jobs program. You know, just like the last trillion dollar porkfest that 'saved or created' all those shovel ready jobs all over America.
It was all there, the constant call by the president to 'be above politics' while he made sure his campaign operatives released the proper talking points to his supporters in the media beforehand, the class warfare rhetoric about how those Evil Corporations have broken the compact with working Americans, the sop to the unions...and oh yes, The Plan. Not an actual bill that can be evaluated and scored, not real legislation, but a Plan for this wondrous $450 billion program, that the president claimed ' will be paid for. Everything.'
Except it isn't and won't be, and the president knew that when he said it. Certainly the fact checkers over at the Associated Press, who normally bend over backwards to help Obama knew it, and it was such a blatant, outright lie that even they couldn't let it pass, referring to it as 'sleight-of-hand accounting':
Essentially, the jobs plan is an IOU from a president and lawmakers who may not even be in office down the road when the bills come due. Today’s Congress cannot bind a later one for future spending. A future Congress could simply reverse it.
Currently, roughly all federal taxes and other revenues are consumed in spending on various federal benefit programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, food stamps, farm subsidies and other social-assistance programs and payments on the national debt. Pretty much everything else is done on credit with borrowed money.
So there is no guarantee that programs that clearly will increase annual deficits in the near term will be paid for in the long term.
The president's big idea is essentially spend more money we don't have to bribe companies with a paltry tax credit if they hire the unemployed. He knows as much about business and private enterprise as I know about quantum physics.
Private employers don't hire people for a few thousand in tax credits, because even with the credits the other expenses like worker's compensation, training, benefits and state taxes more than equal that in most places. They certainly do in California and other high tax states.
Because new hires cost so much, businesses only hire additional workers when the cost of their labor is justified by increased business - more sales, more traffic, more customers and clients, more orders.Whose going to do that for 'tax credits' when all these factors are decreasing, and the uncertainties involved with the increased costs for ObamaCare are right around the corner?
The president's other bright idea involves cutting the social security payroll tax at a time when the system is already paying out more than it takes in. Brilliant! We'll just replace it all with some more borrowed money!
Obama also attacked the oil companies, and talked about more of those famous 'shovel ready projects' he claims are just begging to be done..just like last time.
And he wants this passed now, now now!
You know, it's the little, barely noticed lies our president sneaks into his discourse that bother me the most. The line about 'protecting our kids from mercury' when our president is making war on incandescent bulbs and pushing those famous curly fries light bulbs that contain mercury and turn any home into a hazmat area if they break.
The pose about caring about jobs for working Americans while the administration is simply not prosecuting deportation cases on illegal aliens and our president is forcing the DREAM Act through by executive order.
The faux concern about small businesses when this president and his party have done everything possible to destroy them through high taxes and over regulation
The mewling about working families having trouble making ends meet when the president's energy policies have costs thousands of jobs, skyrocketed prices at the pump and raised costs on food and virtually everything else those families buy.
The president's main problem is that he thinks he's smarter than the rest of us, that everyone is stupid except him. I can't imagine how he deceives himself so thoroughly.
This speech was so bad that just for a moment, I actually felt embarrassed for the president. In fact, I was embarrassed he wasn't embarrassed, just standing up there reading it from the teleprompters.
It was like watching a grown man wet his pants in public and then try to act normally and hope nobody noticed.
No comments:
Post a Comment