Last night President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union address, followed by Republican responses by Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Michelle Bachmann (R-MN). Everyone paid respect to Gabrielle Giffords. Also notable were people who did not attend. Paul Broun (R-GA) stayed away, but tweeted, “Mr. President, you don’t believe in the Constitution. You believe in socialism.” Equaling Broun in ignominious disrespect, the three most anti-constitutional Supreme Court Justices also boycotted the speech: Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. In this article, I have the complete video of all three speeches, my own in depth analysis of Obama’s speech and comments on the two Republican responses. Every speech contained at least one major lie.
Here is the Obama speech with text here.
Obama rightly said that Republicans and Democrats will have to move forward together or not at all. At several points throughout the speech he pointed to accomplishments from the last two years, but I prefer to concentrate just on his proposals.
He wants to eliminate subsidies for the oil industry and invest the savings in green energy. I fully agree. Boehner almost cried over that one.
He wants to make permanent the $10K tuition tax credit for four years of college. This idea does not go far enough, because it benefits only those families that pay $2,500 a year or more in taxes.
He wants to take on the immigration issue and alluded to the Dream Act. I agree, but need more specifics.
He wants build infrastructure, including giving 80% of Americans access to high speed rail and 90% of Americans access to the next generation of high speed wireless. I fully agree.
He wants to lower corporate tax rates by closing loopholes that favor some companies and industries. I’m cautious here. If ALL the loopholes are truly closed, especially those enable companies to evade taxes by keeping profits offshore, I would support it, because the most abusive corporations would actually pay more taxes.
He wants to review all government regulations, but create and enforce safeguards to protect the American people. I support the former, but only contingent on the latter.
He wants to freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years, without harming our most vulnerable citizens or cutting programs we cannot afford to do without. It sounds good in principle, but I don’t see how he can do so and build infrastructure too.
He wants medical malpractice reform for frivolous lawsuits. I’m OK with that as long as only frivolous lawsuits are impacted, and there are no caps on punitive damages.
He wants to strengthen Medicare and Social Security without cutting benefits or privatization. I’m concerned that he failed to mention retirement age and COLAs.
He wants to eliminate the Bush tax cut for the top 2%. I agree. Boehner’s eyes got very big here. He may have soiled his pants.
He wants to merge, consolidate and reorganize the government to eliminate duplication and overlap. This is a truly herculean task, but it desperately needs to be done. There are currently twelve different agencies regulating the oil industry. There should be one regulating all energy matters.
He promised to veto any bill that contains earmarks. While not all earmarks are bad, some, especially Republicans abuse them.
He attributed Republican members of Congress for having the same dream for the American people that he does. This was Obama’s big lie. The Republican dream for the American people is to eliminate the middle class and establish one party rule. If they shared a dream for the American people, they would on occasion do something for our benefit. They have not and do not. Republicans rule exclusively for the benefit of millionaires, billionaires, and criminal corporations. For Obama to attribute the same dream to them is anthropomorphizing a snake.
Paul Ryan’s Republican response was a compendium of attacks and lies.
He blamed Obama for Republican debt and attacked Obama’s agenda while offering none of his own. But since Republicans made him the Budget Czar yesterday in HR-38, the person with complete control over spending levels in the House Budget, his Roadmap for America is a good summary of Republican proposals.
Republicans want to simplify the tax code, raising taxes on people making under $250,000, and lowering them for millionaires, billionaires and corporations.
Republicans want to end Social Security for people under 55.
Republicans want to replace Medicare with discount vouchers for seniors, which they can use to purchase their own private insurance. Because the risks od insuring the elderly are so high, there is no private insurance.
To his credit, Ryan did say that government must provide a safety net for people who cannot support themselves. However, I believe he lied. Consider Jan Brewer’s Republican safety net.
Finally, Michelle Bachmann spoke as only she can. This author takes no responsibility for damage done to screens and keyboards as a result of watching the video.
Michelle was unable to figure out how to manage two cameras. Staring off into empty space is the most intelligent thing she said or did, but she does think the founding fathers ended slavery.
Of the three, while Obama’s speech needs to be fleshed out with more specifics, his vision for the future is far superior to the Republican alternatives.
25 Responses to “SOTU: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”
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Excellent. I don’t know if I’d catagorize Obama’s statement as a lie exactly. Maybe politically expedient. He’s smart enough to know that it isn’t true but his being the “adult” makes them look even smaller and pettier than they are. Obama’s pretty crafty.
Here’s a factcheck on Ryan’s address: http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201101250020
MB = Mistress of Bullshit, especially when it comes to our Founding Fathers.
Leslie, I’d call it a diplomatic lie. Republicans would never admit it, but they know what they are doing. Great link! Thanks!
I won’t watch the MB (as tnlib so well defined). My stomach is not that strong.
What I liked with Obama’s speech that he put out ideas on improving the government worded in such a way that the Republicans couldn’t do anything but applaud, albeit grudgingly.
Yes, Obama is still too far right for me, but I’ll still support him in re-election.
Agreed. I noticed many right-wingers are complaining that Obama stole their rhetoric and ideas – isn’t that called compromise. So does that mean they won’t be willing to work with Democrats, seeing that it appears Obama is once again trying to accommodate the obstructionist right? The Democrats really need to step up their game this year…
It leaves the Republicans in a position of moving further right to continue their obstructionism.
I did, but I was smart. I had the garbage can between my legs when I did.
I think he claimed the center, while nudging it to the left. Republicans were expecting to triangulate, in Clinton fashion, moving the center to the right.
I’d like to see a fact check of her charts and graphs. I heard on NPR that she was looking into a webcam for posting to the Tea Party, but the effect is to make it look like she’s reading a tele prompter.
Media Matter’s Political Correction site has a pretty good one:
http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201101250021
Thanks for this Nameless!
Thinking about it, ending social security on anyone under 55 is essentially raising taxes on those individuals, which would be most of the population. I wonder what the GOP would say about that.
How do you see it as raising taxes, Kevin?
Comment of the day/week/month/year goes to Rep. Anthony “I-Will-NOT-Yield-The-Gentleman-Will-Sit-Down” Weiner after watching the baffle-gabbers, Ryan and Bachmann:
He said that quite well!
“The New York Times” has a fun interactive Seating Chart Picture of last night’s SOTU. You can have it zoom in, or have it actually locate people for you. The only disappointment is that picture doesn’t include the entire Chamber, so you can’t find everyone.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/25/us/politics/sotu-closer-look.html?hp
Thanks for the link!
Obama’s big lie was saying he wanted to eliminate the bush tax cut for the upper 2%. He fought to extend the tax cuts.
It’s Washington, not Mayberry RFD. It’s the same way he fought affordable health care and financial reform, and expanded the defense dept budget. It’s the same way he’s increased drone attacks, and kept the troop level in Iraq the same. He’s a center right politician who does what’s best for the MIC and the FIRE sector.
Yet most of the commenters here buy into the same crap as the teabaggers (Obama’s imaginary liberalism).
What does it take before all the partisan Democrats start opposing war and crony capitalism as they did when Bush did it? When are you guys gonna drop the MFing partisanship and put people above the MFing Democratic party?
Oso, that just isn’t fair or accurate. Obama never supported the to 2% cuts themselves. He caved in on them because Republicans were holding unemployment benefits hostage and he was afraid they would not give in. Then he supported the deal he had made. Was he wrong? Yes! Was he cowardly? Yes! But he has never favored the Bush tax cuts for the top 2%.
yes but the hostage part was by Obama’s design, Pelosi tanked the unemployment extension vote. Her claim was the Senate would kill it anyway – possibly, but it made more tactical sense to pass it big time in congress, then let the Senate kill it and McConnell would be the villain. It’s more logical that it was a bargaining chip so Obama could get the tax cut extension approved. It’s what Wall St wanted, and what Wall St wants is what Obama wants.
Oso, all that speculation is based on false premises. Pelosi didn’t tank the vote. House Dems, especially the blue dogs, did not want to have their votes used against them. The decision to wait mas made in a caucus meeting by a majority of House Dems, not Pelosi. They paid for their cowardice.
He wants to eliminate subsidies for the oil industry
I read one explanation of this, that oil companies don’t actually receive subsidies; that Obama was referring to tax deductions available to all corporations. If that’s true, he’s just demonizing oil companies again. But I’m not sure of the validity of either statement.
The Republican dream for the American people is to eliminate the middle class and establish one party rule. If they shared a dream for the American people, they would on occasion do something for our benefit. They have not and do not. Republicans rule exclusively for the benefit of millionaires, billionaires, and criminal corporations.
This really is an unfair characterization of Republicans. I agree with you, we don’t share the same vision of America that Obama has. But I wouldn’t caricature the progressive/Democrat position to make my point.
The explanation you have read on oil subsidies is a lie.
There is a big difference between caricature and evaluation. Everything I have seen Congressional Republicans do since the election of GW Bush has attempted to do one of two things: to establish Republicans as the sole governing party or to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to the very rich and criminal corporations. What I said is fair, because it is accurate.
Bullshit talks money walks we’ll see where the rubber meets the road. There is still some juice left in the pulp of the middle class yet. Then when there is no MC they can all begin to squeeze the entitlement dependant like kids on medicare and single parent households making less than 25k a year. Thay all lie from the right tot left side of their mouths and if one does not learn to fend for themselves then there will b no free people left on these shores.
And yes bachmann was looking at a second camera that was live streaming to her Armey supported Tea bagger web site.
Well said Mark. Obama said mostly the right things. What matters now is what he does.
An excellent summation of all 3 speeches and I agree with your findings. Bachmann is a loudmouth idiot!
Thanks Jack. I hope MB appreciates you complementing her.