My Reaction to the SoTU Address

Nothing irks me more than when inherent contradiction is accompanied by arrogance. Yes, Obama can put on a strong show, speaking with the eloquence we would expect from a Harvard trained law school graduate. But is there any logic to his many talking points? Let's take a look at some of the highlights of the night:


"One year ago, I took office amid two wars, an economy rocked by a severe recession, a financial system on the verge of collapse, and a government deeply in debt. Experts from across the political spectrum warned that if we did not act, we might face a second depression. So we acted - immediately and aggressively. And one year later, the worst of the storm has passed" (Obama).




OK, fair enough. Indeed, Obama entered office under an extremely dire economic situation, not to mention his acquisition of two wars unfairly waged and poorly regulated. But his next assertion implies that the efforts employed to offset a "second depression" were by some means embraced universally. Well, I recall a petition drawn up by the CATO Institute describing just the opposite:


http://www.cato.org/special/stimulus09/cato_stimulus.pdf

For some reason unbeknownst to me, people still believe Keynesian economics to be the only solution to economic hardship. That by some stretch of the imagination, economic busts can be offset by government pumping money into the system. Maybe this system would work, if government had the money; but what many people oversee is the fact that the money employed in the stimulus package was literally printed off. So, President Obama herein states that "one year later, the worst of the storm has passed." Maybe - at least until the effects of the massive inflation (from the "created" money pumped into the economy in the stimulus package) start to really take its toll.

He proceeds to say that "one in ten Americans still cannot find work. Many businesses have shuttered. Home values have declined. Small towns and rural communities have been hit especially hard. And for those who'd already known poverty, life has become that much harder" (Obama).

And all this is understood under the premise that "the worst of the storm has passed." Not only is this completely contradictory to his previous statement, but also, it seriously undermines just how bad things are. I would estimate unemployment at a rate much higher than 10% - once those who are underemployed and forced to retire at an early age are taken into account. And, once the true effects of the inflation brought by the stimulus package have been realized, these facts will only be compounded.

President Obama's next point is an attempt to unite us all under the notion that the bank bailout was "necessary." He says "we all hated the bank bailout. I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal. But when I ran for president, I promised I wouldn't just do what was popular. I would do what was necessary" (Obama).

I would argue that a root canal is much more popular, and while painful at first, at least a root canal permanently fixes the problem. The bank bailout was not necessary, and it is a pompously fallacious argument to claim that the only solution to our serious economic troubles was to save the corporations at the very root of the problem (no pun intended).

It is important to remember how capitalism functions. Periods of growth are interrupted by periods of economic retraction - and this is healthy. The bailouts may have seemed necessary because of the economic reach of the banks and their investments; that if the banks failed, they would have brought down our entire economy. My only question is, why save failing companies? These banks make poor choices and bad investments, and a system of capitalism allows for mismanaged companies to fail, letting others foster and grow.

One of the most baffling conclusions realized in the aftermath of the economic meltdown is that people blame capitalism. People believe that the greedy CEOs and executives on Wall Street took advantage of those on Main Street. Maybe this is the reality of capitalism - that people easily take advantage of the system. But then why save these people - why exacerbate the already dire effects of impending failure of these companies? Because a failing company will inevitably go down - it is just a matter of time.

Capitalism was never given a chance. We pride ourselves as a nation of freedom and the free-market economy - until a natural recession occurs. Then, to save ourselves from having to limit spending, we employ government interventionism. Capitalism cannot be blamed, simply because capitalism is never allowed to function as such.

Next, the President reiterates his hopes for the growth of small businesses. Nothing new here - except he somehow claims that the stimulus package single-handedly saved countless small businesses from closing. Somehow, I doubt that those "saved" small businesses will still be in existence in the next five years, once inflation kicks in and drives the cost of labor and resources through the roof.

As far as health care goes, Obama wards off the opposition by asking for a better solution to his plan, which I can gladly offer. Actually, I have two "better" options:

• If the true issue at hand is that too many Americans are left unprotected by medical insurance, then an alternative to governmentally prescribed medicine might be tax deductions. Make all medical expenses tax deductible. At least then, innovation and the incentive to be a strong doctor is left uncompromised.
  
• Burn the health care plan. This entire plan is an outrage to American politics in general. Nowhere in the Constitution is it declared that the federal government must (or even has the right to) provide health care to the American citizens. Either first pass a Constitutional amendment providing the federal credentials for a universal health care plan as prescribed by the central government, or encourage the states to come up with their own plan (as permitted by the Tenth Amendment).

One final topic that stood out to me was nuclear weapons. He states that "at April's Nuclear Security Summit, we will bring forty-four nations together behind a clear goal: securing all vulnerable nuclear material around the world in four years, so that they never fall into the hands of terrorists" (Obama).

It always baffles me that our leaders could be so pretentious as to think that we should be in control of who can and who cannot have nuclear arms. No one designated us as the police of nuclear arms in a world of sovereign nations. How pompous to think that we are the only nation capable of the rationality to determine when and how to use nuclear weapons - even as a deterrent. This is Western supremacy at its best. If I am not mistaken, in the history of nuclear weapons, no state has ever gone after another in possession of such. Is this not evidence of the deterrence of nuclear arms? How can we sit back and say that Iran cannot be allowed the opportunity to develop a program of nuclear energy for fear of retaliation against us, when they feel just as threatened right now as we would had the tables been turned, and Iran was the one in possession of nuclear arms? Furthermore, how can we begin to deter a sovereign nation from developing whatever program they so desire? This is not our right, nor is it the right of any other nation. It is ostentatious, and it is the type of reasoning that pits people against the arrogance of the West.

All in all, the speech was well delivered and pretty well received, as they all seem to be. But a deeper look into some of the President's major remarks makes me wonder if any leader will ever stick to their original platforms. Obama promised change, and all we have seen is an extreme exacerbation of Bush policies. For a professor of Constitutional Law at the premier school of economics in the country, I am astonished at how little Obama understands the Constitution. We were promised change under the pretext of hope, and as far as I can tell, all we have received is the perpetuation of the status quo.