Obama's State of the Union Address: Good, Bad, Ugly?

[Coito ergo sum]

I thought it was a listenable speech. However, I don't come in to any SOTU address with high expectations. Generally, it's full of lofty, generalized statements, and this one did not disappoint.

Where I did find him lacking, though, was on his issue of technology, innovation and development in the US. I find his words sadly lacking on this note. This is a guy claiming that tech and innovation are vital to the US long term survival as a great nation. At the same time, he canceled our manned space flight program, which is undoubtedly the most daring, most innovative, and most technological industry we have. It is also the most inspiring, and one that could launch the US on a new 1/2 century of technological glory.

Instead, he talks about light rail and solar panels. That's o.k. and all, but they aren't substitutes for daring innovation and groundbreaking attempts at exploration. The is no inspiration to be found in a speech about light rail and solar panels than there is in one about getting men to the Moon. It's a dull thud in comparison.

Mr. Obama said that the country needs to “reach a level of research and development we haven’t seen since the height of the Space Race.” In that respect one would think that the president would have invoked John F. Kennedy’s May 25, 1961 “Special message to the Congress on urgent national needs,” also known as the “Man on the Moon” speech, which was also delivered to a joint session of Congress. But the contrasts between the two addresses are greater than the comparisons. President Kennedy couched his objective of landing a man in the moon in terms of winning “the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny.” He saw the space race as having critical impact “on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take.” To JFK it was a critical competition between the free world and the communist bloc.

Mr. Obama’s call is more abstract. It poses no concrete objective, like putting a man on the moon. Mr. Obama was simply touting his new budget proposal. He would like to see the same level of national commitment as during the space race, but without a goal, without passion, and certainly without identifying any country as an adversary. In fact his self-possessed “Sputnik moment” is a lifeless call for more aimless government programs and regulatory meddling.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... ut-speech/

That's really it, you know. We're rudderless on this issue. There isn't a lofty goal, a national objective, or something we can nationally take pride in.

Last October China sent an unmanned probe into Moon orbit to map possible landing sites. The People’s Republic is expected to make a manned moon landing sometime this decade. The Obama administration has done its best to curry favor with Beijing, which in return has exploited American technology and open markets, and treated the United States with disdain.

Maybe when the red flag is flying on the lunar surface the United States will have a true Sputnik moment, the shocked realization that while the rest of mankind is making giant leaps, Obama’s America can manage only small steps.

When Americans have to watch a Chinese flag go up on the Moon, and when we realize that we could have been there too - we could have been building a base at Clavius Crater on the south pole of the Moon. We could have built and launched a rocket to dwarf the Saturn V. We could have gone beyond low Earth orbit activities, and taken the step to put a landing site on Mars a mere few years away - in most of our lifetimes. When we see that, we will see how shortsighted and stupid the cancellation of Constellation was.

[Coito ergo sum]

Some Fact Checking....

OBAMA: Tackling the deficit "means further reducing health care costs, including programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are the single biggest contributor to our long-term deficit. Health insurance reform will slow these rising costs, which is part of why nonpartisan economists have said that repealing the health care law would add a quarter of a trillion dollars to our deficit."

THE FACTS: The idea that Obama's health care law saves money for the government is based on some arguable assumptions.

To be sure, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated the law will slightly reduce red ink over 10 years. But the office's analysis assumes that steep cuts in Medicare spending, as called for in the law, will actually take place. Others in the government have concluded it is unrealistic to expect such savings from Medicare.

In recent years, for example, Congress has repeatedly overridden a law that would save the treasury billions by cutting deeply into Medicare pay for doctors. Just last month, the government once again put off the scheduled cuts for another year, at a cost of $19 billion. That money is being taken out of the health care overhaul. Congress has shown itself sensitive to pressure from seniors and their doctors, and there's little reason to think that will change.

OBAMA: Vowed to veto any bills sent to him that include "earmarks," pet spending provisions pushed by individual lawmakers. "Both parties in Congress should know this: If a bill comes to my desk with earmarks inside, I will veto it."

THE FACTS: House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has promised that no bill with earmarks will be sent to Obama in the first place. Republicans have taken the lead in battling earmarks while Obama signed plenty of earmark-laden spending bills when Democrats controlled both houses.

It's a turnabout for the president; in early 2009, Obama sounded like an apologist for the practice: "Done right, earmarks have given legislators the opportunity to direct federal money to worthy projects that benefit people in their districts, and that's why I've opposed their outright elimination," he said then.

OBAMA: "I'm willing to look at other ideas to bring down costs, including one that Republicans suggested last year: medical malpractice reform to rein in frivolous lawsuits."

THE FACTS: Republicans may be forgiven if this offer makes them feel like Charlie Brown running up to kick the football, only to have it pulled away, again.

Obama has expressed openness before to this prominent Republican proposal, but it has not come to much. It was one of several GOP ideas that were dropped or diminished in the health care law after Obama endorsed them in a televised bipartisan meeting at the height of the debate.

Republicans want federal action to limit jury awards in medical malpractice cases; what Obama appears to be offering, by supporting state efforts, falls short of that. The president has said he agrees that fear of being sued leads to unnecessary tests and procedures that drive up health care costs. So far the administration has only wanted to pay for pilot programs and studies.

Trial lawyers, major political donors to Democratic candidates, are strongly opposed to caps on jury awards. But the administration has been reluctant to support other approaches, such as the creation of specialized courts where expert judges, not juries, would decide malpractice cases.

OBAMA: Praised the "important progress" made by the bipartisan fiscal commission he created last year.

THE FACTS: The panel's co-chairmen last month recommended a painful mix of spending cuts and tax increases, each of them unpopular with one constituency or another, including raising the Social Security retirement age, cutting future benefit increases, raising the gasoline tax and rolling back popular tax breaks like the mortgage interest deduction. But Obama has yet to sign on to any of the ideas, even though he promised when creating the panel that it would not be "one of those Washington gimmicks."

Obama missed another chance Tuesday night to embrace the tough medicine proposed by the commission for bringing down the deficit. For example, the president said he wanted to "strengthen Social Security for future generations" -- but ruled out slashing benefits or partially privatizing the program, and made no reference to raising the retirement age. That left listeners to guess how he plans to do anything to salvage the popular retirement program whose trust funds are expected to run out of money in 2037 without changes.

OBAMA: As testament to the fruits of his administration's diplomatic efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons, he said the Iranian government "faces tougher and tighter sanctions than ever before."

THE FACTS: That is true, and it reflects Obama's promise one year ago that Iran would face "growing consequences" if it failed to heed international demands to constrain its nuclear program. But what Obama didn't say was that U.S. diplomacy has failed to persuade Tehran to negotiate over U.N. demands that it take steps to prove it is not on the path toward a bomb. Preliminary talks with Iran earlier this month broke off after the Iranians demanded U.S. sanctions be lifted.

Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Jim Drinkard, Erica Werner, Jim Kuhnhenn, Andrew Taylor, Stephen Ohlemacher and Robert Burns contributed to this report.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/FACT-CHEC ... l?x=0&.v=2

[Coito ergo sum]

President Obama's agenda spelled out in his well-received State of the Union address would boost spending an additional $20 billion and lead to higher taxes, according to a line-by-line analysis from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. [See photos of the Obamas behind the scenes.]

http://www.usnews.com/news/washington-w ... 20-billion

[mistermack]

Good, bad or ugly? Surely you've left out irrelevant?

[Gawd]

When Americans have to watch a Chinese flag go up on the Moon, and when we realize that we could have been there too - we could have been building a base at Clavius Crater on the south pole of the Moon. We could have built and launched a rocket to dwarf the Saturn V. We could have gone beyond low Earth orbit activities, and taken the step to put a landing site on Mars a mere few years away - in most of our lifetimes. When we see that, we will see how shortsighted and stupid the cancellation of Constellation was.

Hey Coito, Americans are bankrupt. Going to the Moon should be the least of their priorities. The Chinese are going to call in their money, all US$12+ trillion of it in national government debt alone. And they are going to want interest, too. Americans have become too fat and greedy to go to the Moon.

[JimC]

The political apparatus of the United States seems to be headed for 2 years of paralysis, with a constant conflict between the presidential office and congress, while media fascination with Obama's re-election campaign and the intercinine warfare amongst the republicans will remove all attention from issues of substance...

[sandinista]

Good, bad or ugly? Surely you've left out irrelevant?

[Coito ergo sum]

When Americans have to watch a Chinese flag go up on the Moon, and when we realize that we could have been there too - we could have been building a base at Clavius Crater on the south pole of the Moon. We could have built and launched a rocket to dwarf the Saturn V. We could have gone beyond low Earth orbit activities, and taken the step to put a landing site on Mars a mere few years away - in most of our lifetimes. When we see that, we will see how shortsighted and stupid the cancellation of Constellation was.

Hey Coito, Americans are bankrupt. Going to the Moon should be the least of their priorities. The Chinese are going to call in their money, all US$12+ trillion of it in national government debt alone. And they are going to want interest, too. Americans have become too fat and greedy to go to the Moon.

No no - The President was right - the way to restore American prosperity is through innovation, technological development, and daring accomplishments. There is no better way to do that, IMHO, than by forging ahead with manned missions to the Moon and Mars.

If we take the necessary spending reductions, and pay the necessary increased taxes, and we all buckle down and do our part (well a good deal of us, anyway), then we can get the work done to push the US far head and reap the technological benefits that manned space operations will inevitably provide.

Apparently, you are right about the fact that we won't go to the moon. It has less to do with fatness and greed,though, and more to do with shortsightedness of leadership. John F. Kennedy, where are you?

[Robert_S]

When Americans have to watch a Chinese flag go up on the Moon, and when we realize that we could have been there too - we could have been building a base at Clavius Crater on the south pole of the Moon. We could have built and launched a rocket to dwarf the Saturn V. We could have gone beyond low Earth orbit activities, and taken the step to put a landing site on Mars a mere few years away - in most of our lifetimes. When we see that, we will see how shortsighted and stupid the cancellation of Constellation was.

Hey Coito, Americans are bankrupt. Going to the Moon should be the least of their priorities. The Chinese are going to call in their money, all US$12+ trillion of it in national government debt alone. And they are going to want interest, too. Americans have become too fat and greedy to go to the Moon.

No no - The President was right - the way to restore American prosperity is through innovation, technological development, and daring accomplishments. There is no better way to do that, IMHO, than by forging ahead with manned missions to the Moon and Mars.

If we take the necessary spending reductions, and pay the necessary increased taxes, and we all buckle down and do our part (well a good deal of us, anyway), then we can get the work done to push the US far head and reap the technological benefits that manned space operations will inevitably provide.

Apparently, you are right about the fact that we won't go to the moon. It has less to do with fatness and greed,though, and more to do with shortsightedness of leadership. John F. Kennedy, where are you?

"Often it is means that justify ends: Goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble. "
Alan J. Perlis

[Coito ergo sum]

"Often it is means that justify ends: Goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble. "
Alan J. Perlis

I'm not following you here.

[Robert_S]

"Often it is means that justify ends: Goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble. "
Alan J. Perlis

I'm not following you here.

It's more or less in line with your point. We'll make technological advances if we have a goal that requires advances. To what purposes we usefully and practically apply our new technology is anyone's guess. But having people working on interesting problems is the important thing.