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The State of the Union is always a dog and pony show that means…pretty much nothing. Especially in an election year, where it’s simply a captive audience listening to a stump speech. But there were a few bits of the speech (full text here) that are instructive for those looking at Obama for another four years:
1) Obama has learned nothing. Bill Clinton got spanked in a mid-term election and realized that his mandate was razor-thin. Obama has learned nothing: he intends to continue poking Congress with governance through executive order (a direct attack on Congressional power which was purposefully designed to stop royal dictates from the Oval Office), he wants to continue with cronyism in green energy — and apparently wants to expand it to the military, he cannot see any of the mistakes he has made. In short, he is the typical bureaucrat: full of conceits — believing his intellect is great, his wisdom more powerful, and his plans incapable of failure (and when they do, it’s the subject in question’s fault.)
2) Cronyism and corruption will remain enshrined in the administration. The president gave us the same speil on degrading infrastructure — (You borrowed trillions of dollars…did you spend any of it on rebuilding roads and bridges? All we saw in New Mexico were signs declaring the still-degraded road was part of the federal reinvestment.) We heard about green energy and a “we don’t have enough oil” toss off line. (Incorrect, more oil is being found all the time.) Federal-backed mortgage refinancing. Because we haven’t lost enough money on Wall Street, GM, and green energy companies…now we’re going to lose money on over-priced houses that people were stupid enough to buy. And he still wants to tax millionaires and higher more…because taking more money from the people that use it to hire people is a great idea. But hey! he’s going to cut regulations! We’ve heard this before and the new regulations cost about $230 billion. The cuts will take $2 billion in BS red tape out of the way. That’s equivalent, right..? At least in bureaucratic math (zeros count for nothing, right?) Oh, and we’re going to go after banks for predatory lending…that’s sure to loosen up the money supply. And, of course, they won’t go after the banks they bailed out (the worst offenders); it’ll be that neighborhood bank that is doing well and it managed honestly.
3) They still don’t understand economics at the White House. Paraphrased: The tax code is too complex! So let’s add another rule to the tax code to stick it to those people who were successful! Worse — he has a “blueprint” for the economy. Blueprints are for building static objects. The market and economies are living things that change quickly, based on the needs, wants, and innovations of those millions involved in it. At every attempt, economic planning has failed. Look at Europe now. Look at the Soviet Union, China prior to unleashing their economy, the mercantilism of Spain in the 16th Century and forward.
It does not work. Politicians do not know better. Even the few that are smarter than a mushroom cannot plan the interactions of 307 million people.
4) The president really like imperial power. He complained about Congress and gave us statements like, “With or without this Congress, I will keep taking actions…” He love those executive orders. He killed a massive construction project (you know, the ones he keeps touting as our salvation, economically) with a stroke of the pen, as well as denying Americans more and cheaper fuel. But hey, that means Warren Buffett’s railroad gets to keep moving oil more expensively. Even more chilling to me is the president’s implication at the beginning and end of his speech that the military is a good model for the nation.
Mussolini thought so, as well. So has every dictator. The military is a centralized, top-down arrangement that seems very efficient from the outside. That’s because it has one purpose: kill people and break their stuff. The people in the military have no right to speak against the chain of command (politicians included.) You have no freedom of movement, no ability to call out sick, crappy health care (no dental, practically, when I was in) — you are property of the state.
The SOTU speech gives us a glimpse into the authoritarian, conceited, and myopic thought processes of the Progressives (in both parties.) It’s not a pretty picture.
