President's Speech Not Boring Enough!
Even though President Obama's prepared speeches are pretty predictable, robotic, passion-less, and uninspiring, I figured I'd tune into his latest primetime speech to see what he would say.
First, the President strutted out to his podium and zeroed in on reading his teleprompter - pretty predictable stuff. His first few words bring us back to 11 years ago - year 2000 - as he continued to blame his predecessor for the enormous deficit we have today. He blamed the tax cuts and Bush's stimulus for the problem. He blamed the two wars on his predecessor. Then he blamed Kennedy-Bush Prescription Drug Bill. (He didn't mention that Democrats supported both wars, and the prescription drug bill and didn't mention that he personally tripled the troops in Afghanstan.
The President then fabricated a few facts - indicating that he inherited a trillion dollar deficit. I could say this is an outright lie, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt on this. Ok - Bush's deficit in 2007 was 1% of GDP - then in 2008 it grew to about 3% after a few bailouts and a short term stimulus. Ok - If you include TARP under Bush, then we can add 5% to this figure and maybe that's what he's doing. But 85% of TARP has been paid back in later years so the President is clearly being disingenuous when talking about this inheritance. Again this is usual stuff and not surprising at all that the President did this.
What I really didn't like about the President's speech though was two things:
1. He did it in an empty room, and refused to take questions (no transparency)
2. He said clearly about his "plan": "I won't bore you with the details."
Please Mr. President - bore us! I think the public wants details and needs details of his plan (if there are any). That's what this whole debate is missing - details! How do we know the President's "cuts" are really cuts? Or are they really just smaller spending increases? Where is he cutting? What are the specifics?
I don't expect the President to rise above political posturing and that he'd stop blaming his predecessor, or fabricating facts. But regarding the debt plan - I want details. Please Mr. President - bore us even more!
First, the President strutted out to his podium and zeroed in on reading his teleprompter - pretty predictable stuff. His first few words bring us back to 11 years ago - year 2000 - as he continued to blame his predecessor for the enormous deficit we have today. He blamed the tax cuts and Bush's stimulus for the problem. He blamed the two wars on his predecessor. Then he blamed Kennedy-Bush Prescription Drug Bill. (He didn't mention that Democrats supported both wars, and the prescription drug bill and didn't mention that he personally tripled the troops in Afghanstan.
The President then fabricated a few facts - indicating that he inherited a trillion dollar deficit. I could say this is an outright lie, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt on this. Ok - Bush's deficit in 2007 was 1% of GDP - then in 2008 it grew to about 3% after a few bailouts and a short term stimulus. Ok - If you include TARP under Bush, then we can add 5% to this figure and maybe that's what he's doing. But 85% of TARP has been paid back in later years so the President is clearly being disingenuous when talking about this inheritance. Again this is usual stuff and not surprising at all that the President did this.
What I really didn't like about the President's speech though was two things:
1. He did it in an empty room, and refused to take questions (no transparency)
2. He said clearly about his "plan": "I won't bore you with the details."
Please Mr. President - bore us! I think the public wants details and needs details of his plan (if there are any). That's what this whole debate is missing - details! How do we know the President's "cuts" are really cuts? Or are they really just smaller spending increases? Where is he cutting? What are the specifics?
I don't expect the President to rise above political posturing and that he'd stop blaming his predecessor, or fabricating facts. But regarding the debt plan - I want details. Please Mr. President - bore us even more!
posted by pistolpete | 4:35 AM
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