Typical Obama Speech

Obama's speech was as expected. He blamed gridlock for his problems but forgot to mention that for two whole years, he controlled Congress and chose to do everything but help the economy. NRO's Chris Edwards summarizes the speech with a few bullets:

● A temporary payroll tax cut is not a tax cut at all if the president “pays for it” with tax hikes later on. And if it’s temporary, it won’t encourage businesses to hire additional workers anyway.

● An “infrastructure bank” would reduce transparency in federal spending, which would go directly against a key Obama promise of increased budget transparency.

● Since the 1960s, federal jobs-training programs simply haven't worked.

● New business hiring tax credits won’t work, and, by making the tax code more complicated, such credits would encourage more tax cheating. They would be the exact sort of tax loophole that Obama claims to hate.

● “Government and business working side-by-side” sounds like crony capitalism to me.

● Extending unemployment insurance for another year will help keep the unemployment rate high.