Last Tuesday night I spent an hour and a half
watching President Barack Obama speak to the Cabinet, Congress, the Supreme
Court, and to the nation about the state of our country. Now, it is no
secret I am no big fan of President Obama, and I didn't have very high
expectations for this address. His past SOTU addresses have been full of
largely empty words and sometimes just plain lies. Rarely has he actually
laid out any definitive plan of action when it comes to solving America's
problems. But I was honestly hoping that he would at least state some solid
plans for the future (even if I didn't agree with them), if only to put on a
good face for the rest of the world. Unfortunately, he didn't do that.
So, without further ado, here are some of my thoughts on a few things
he did say...
The Job Market and Income
Equality
President Obama spent a good part of his speech on
jobs and wages. One of the first things he said was that America
has "the lowest unemployment rate in over five years; a rebounding
housing market, [and] a manufacturing sector that's adding jobs for the first
time since the 1990s [...]" What he left out was that the
unemployment rate is still at 6.7%...only .6% lower than it was in 2008.
And if you add discouraged workers to that number, it goes up to 13.1%.
I realize that the President was trying to take an optimistic look at
things, but I don't think it is completely realistic to claim that things are
so much better.
Another thing the President stressed was his concern
over income inequality in America. One of his strongest, most definitive
points was that he wants minimum wage to be raised to $10 an hour. In
fact, he said he will sign an executive order that will increase the minimum
wage of all federal employees to $10.10/hr. Now, while this sounds like a
praiseworthy plan, I think he has overlooked several things. First of
all, what about small businesses that don't have any money to spare? There are many small businesses that would be
either forced out of business or have to lay off workers if they were required
to pay all their employees $10/hr. Secondly, an increase in minimum wage
would cause an increase in the cost of goods and services. Big companies,
such as Walmart, are definitely not going to absorb the cost themselves.
Instead, they will raise their prices. Obama used Costco as an example of
a store that raised their wages without increasing prices. However, if all companies were required to
raise their wages, they couldn’t all be counted on keeping prices the same.
I believe that this inflation of prices would somewhat cancel out the
higher wages.
Obama also touched on the wage gap between men and
women. He claimed that women only make 77 cents on the dollar, compared
to men. While this is technically true, it fails to look at all the
facts. Women, as a whole, make 77 cents for every dollar men make, but if
you factor in that women work different jobs than men, different hours than
men, and different professions than men, the real figure would be about 91
cents on the dollar.
So, while women do make slightly less than men, it is not as big of a deal as
Obama is making out of it.
Healthcare
Where to begin? The President spent about 600 words
of his 6,900 word speech on healthcare, in specific, the Affordable Care
Act. He mostly used these words to
promote the healthcare law, without really giving too many details about it. He announced that 12 million Americans have
signed up for healthcare (both private and Medicaid). Of course, nothing was said about how six
million people have lost their previous plans and doctors, or about the massive
failure of the Obamacare website, but that was to be expected. He also scolded the Republicans for passing
40 bills to overturn the law. “Let’s not
have another 40-something votes to repeal a law that’s already helping millions
of Americans […] the first 40 were plenty.”
This was one of the things I agreed with him on. As much as I oppose the healthcare law, I
don’t think there was any point in the House passing that many bills when they
knew they would never pass the Senate.
It just made the Republicans seem whiny and desperate. It also must have been an enormous waste of
time and money.
Overall, I was surprised that Obama didn’t spend
more time touting his healthcare law. I
think it is fair to say that the Affordable Care Act is his biggest
accomplishment as president, so I was expecting it to take up a good portion of
his speech. I suppose he thought there
were other, more pressing issues to discuss, now that the law is nearly in full
effect.
The Environment, “Climate Change”,
and Energy
A large chunk of the address focused
on America’s energy situation. The president
celebrated the fact that we are becoming more and more energy independent. He promoted the use of natural gas and solar
power. Then, he dropped a
bombshell. He said, “The debate is
settled. Climate change is a fact.” Really, Mr. President? On what do you base
that assertion? I think that statement
is a little hard to prove. While the climate is indeed changing, it isn’t exactly
a scientific fact that humans are causing it.
“I Have a Pen and a Phone”
Several weeks ago Mr. Obama
proclaimed that he “has a pen and a phone,” meaning that he wasn’t going to sit
around and wait for legislation to be passed in order to do the things he
wanted done. On Tuesday he reiterated
that message when he said, “I’m eager to work with all of you, but America does
not stand still – and neither will I. So
wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand
opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do.” He said this right in front of both Houses of
Congress…yep, all 535 of them. I was
sitting there thinking, “Something is not right with this picture.” Obama had just told them that he didn’t need
them and that he was going to bypass them whenever he felt like it and as much
as possible…and they stood up and applauded.
Say, what? The fact that our president
stood in front of the country and proclaimed that he was going to disregard the
Constitution and the checks and balances in order to promote his own agenda is
frightening, to say the least; especially when Congress not only doesn’t do
anything to stop it, but actually applauds him when he announces it. The Founding Fathers are rolling over in
their graves right about now. This was
the exact situation they were trying to prevent when they came up with the
three branches of government.
Conclusion
Well, I have already written way too much. You’re all probably bored to tears by now…or
completely asleep. Even so, there is so much more I could have said. Oh well, I’ll save it for another day. But, I digress…
In conclusion, Obama’s 5th
State of the Union Address fell tremendously short. He made a large number of empty, vague
promises for the future, and failed to say anything really substantial. He had a lot of good rhetoric, but very few
specifics. As we have come to expect
with the president, it was a very good speech when it comes to its
delivery. No one can deny the fact that
he knows how to give a good speech (at least when he has a teleprompter,
anyway). However, it seemed to me that
Obama was just repeating the same things he has been saying for the past five
years. But where are the results? His speech also gave me cause for alarm, most
notably, in that he seems hell bent on overstepping his Constitutional powers
in every way possible. It also seemed
like he was saying a lot of things that were not in line with things he has
said in the past. But, that is a topic
for another day. So, I will leave you
with that.
God bless you all, and God bless the
United States of America!
