My latest column is up at PJ Media. It’s a look at last night’s SOTU address and why such formal speeches are worse than useless. Jules Crittendon first offers his thoughts on the speech so make sure you read his take also.
Not a word about the dollar which is tanking in international markets. Nor did the president mention record trade deficits. He alluded to a “decline†in the housing market, forgetting to mention that for the first time in memory, housing values dropped. It also slipped his mind that around 1 1/2 million Americans are apt to lose their homes in the coming year regardless of what he, the Congress, or the entire federal government does about it.
Not a word about the banking crisis as most of our largest financial institutions, having lost billions of dollars, were forced to go overseas, hat in hand, begging for a bailout.
All of this may or may not lead to a recession. But it is equally uncertain whether throwing $130 billion dollars that we don’t have at people in the form of “rebates†will do anything except get most of the Congress re-elected.
11:29 am
Belated and off topic— But not off by much as it relates to the “new†New Deal GWB has been pusnig the last 3 yeasr and again pushed last night – as you have pointed out very well.
Last week when you asked why Obama was singing Ronnie’s praise I said I thought he was very confident and felt he had SC in the bag. Well we all know he thumped Billary 2:1 last Sat. There are a lot of conservative Ronnie Dems (at here in Cal) that would go back to their former “home†they are so unhappy with the left wing agenda pushed by the national GOP the last 3 years. They just need someone that indicates an appreciation for conservative values. Obama was/is trying to be that candidate!
The Dem contest will be a fight to the end and if Obama wins I say he will win in Nov and win big. I think Billary will also win but it will be very close as she only has John McCain and his followers who think she is conservative; and they are a less than 30% of the GOP and even smaller outside the party.
1:28 pm
“It also slipped his mind…”
yes, i’m sure that’s what happened. and as usual, after giving a very long list of omissions and failures by Bush, you then go on to aggressively attack…the Dem response.
you have vitriol for dems and yet are content to merely detail all the sins of Bush. same old same old.
Hey kid. Wipe your nose before you comment here.
It is so painfully obvious you either didn’t read the entire article or you didn’t even bother to click the link to read it. It makes me sick to my stomach that idiots like you criticize me for not denigrating the president enough. It’s an idiotic criticism and typical of the shallow, brainless twaddle I get from lefties on a regular basis.
ED.
3:42 pm
Since when did the fact that we don’t have the money stop politicians from spending it. So if they are going to spend it anyway, i will take some of the 28% I gave them back any day.
6:20 pm
Such a short post, but so much to take issue with…
If voters reward Congress with re-election for a measly little rebate, that is, by definition, Congress doing what the people want… so are you arguing that Congress should ignore the will of the people in order to do what you want them to do?
And your complaint the rebates are ‘spending money we don’t have’, that’s letting the spending side drive the entire debate. Liberals are the ones who claim that we can’t ‘afford’ tax cuts’. Repeat after me, tax cuts, of any kind, are good and preferable to letting the federal government keep it in order to justify even more spending. People deserve to keep more of the money they earn. We didn’t ‘have’ the money to pay for Bush’s tax cuts, are you saying those were bad as well?
As for your aside on housing prices dropping, are you of the opinion that pre-crash prices accurately reflected the value of housing? If not, shouldn’t we applaud the market correcting for the overvalue? Yet it sounds like you’re unhappy.
The same holds true for those who may lose their homes. If you believe they all came about those houses fair and square, then, sure, get all weepy. But if you think that many, if not all, of those folks got their houses through a combination of stupidity and/or greed, shouldn’t we be happy that idiots are not benefiting at our expense? After all, their chasing houses they weren’t qualified to buy caused millions of other buyers to pay more than they would otherwise have had to buy. A good conservative wouldn’t bemoan that there’s nothing Congress could do to keep this from happening.
And what banking crisis? A banking crisis is when depositors can’t get their deposits out, and not, as is the case now, when the stockholders lose their stake as a result of employees risking the owner’s money in order to fatten their own bonuses. So management had to sell equity cheap in order to regain their footing, BFD.
The post is an excerpt from a column in PJ Media.
ED.
1:28 pm
Rick, Loved ya on Ed’s show.
I couldn’t agree with you more. the tax pre-bate is going to come back out of our pockets eventually. It’s just bread and circuses for 21st century. It bought Bush some goodwill before, and he might be trying to send out his repub cronies with a smile.
And what will the money be spent on? Downpayment on a Hyundai? $200 sneakers from China? Vacation in Mexico? Although I have an aversion to the gov’t keeping any more of my money, it strikes me as just stupid voter tricks. A cynical move from the President.
2:39 pm
“Repeat after me, tax cuts, of any kind, are good and preferable to letting the federal government keep it in order to justify even more spending.”
The reason you have to keep making people repeat this is that it’s not a blanket truth, but Republicans have to believe it blindly in order to get their politicians elected.
It’s only true when the lowering of taxes is accompanied by equal cuts in the budget. The Republicans had control of the Presidency and both houses of Congress for 6 years. This was a perfect opportunity to realize the core Republican dream of cutting taxes, lowering the budget, and letting the economy boom. Unfortunately the Republican leadership doesn’t have the political courage to actually make the necessary budget cuts. This is because a majority of federal money flows from blue states to red states. If Republican leaders make those necessary budget cuts, they won’t get reelected.
So I’m sitting here thinking about how much of my paycheck goes toward paying off interest on the national debt, which has grown to insane proportions while Bush was at the helm. I have to hand it to you Republicans—the political power you’ve gained from your reputation of lowering taxes is incredible. The problem is that it’s a huge scam.