State Of the Union 2010

I felt the President's speech was good. I like the guy. I don't like his politics, but I like him as a person. He speaks like a populist. I'm actually a little miffed at Fox News for being more negative than normal. I yearn for Bill O'Reilly's take on the speech, because I don't feel FNC is being "Fair & Balanced" on this particular occasion.

That being said, despite the fact that Obama is a likable guy, I have strong concerns about "between the lines" promises and veiled platitudes.

I worry about his continued progressive ideas of how education should be paid for, cap and trade, health care and union roles. I felt the President's public chastising of the Judicial Branch and of the Republican's blockage of left-leaning legislation was inappropriate.

The president has to take some blame. He has to. He criticized the GOP for blocking legislation, but he takes no blame for being the engine for legislation that many feel would have been destructive to our nation, or would have increased the size of the federal government and its role in our everyday private lives. Why were the bills rushed through and not placed online for Americans to read and respond to? If truly we have lived for decades with the problems we currently have, surely there's time for legislation to be reviewed responsibly and debated fully. The President has four years... he didn't need to ram everything though in his first year in office while the 60-seat majority was in play. How is that in any way a bi-partisan effort? Republicans were left out of the drafting process, being told they they didn't have the majority anymore and that the Democrats didn't want or need their help.

Health care? You want suggestions? You have had them all the time. If you want to lower costs, increase coverage and abolish the denial of benefits because of pre-existing conditions, just increase competition. Allow companies to sell across state lines and the market will take care of itself, and I would believe that it will happen relatively quickly. If an insurance agency wants to finally do business outside of their jurisdiction against the agencies already in place there, they're going to have to be able to offer one hell of a deal. But make no mistake - this should be regulated to be sure that the agencies deliver on their promises and pay out what they promise to pay out, and so larger companies cannot come in and buy up all of the competition and return things to the status quo, which would remove the incentives for them to offer more for less. Also so there is some sort of guarantee of reciprocity should an insuring agent go out of business and be forced to port their client list over to a new insurer. The new insurer should be chosen by the insured through the fair market and no-one else.

What a CEO gets paid is not under the jurisdiction of federal roles. It is under the jurisdiction of the board of directors that the entity puts in place. To that end, it's also the responsibility of that board to do what it takes to keep themselves out of trouble, and to tighten things up or make hard choices when they fail.

For the government to get involved is to seize control of private enterprise, which is the nanny state of "Red Scare" proportions.

For the President to propose a tax on the biggest banks is to invite a trickle down cost increase to the consumer. Banks are already increasing interest rates on their credit cards, charging fees for ATM and debit card use and tightening their belts on credit lines for companies, even those who are profitable. But then, that's been his MO all along. He promises tax cuts for the middle class, but then he imposes increased taxes on middle class consumables.

He's kept lobbyists out of Washington? Is he kidding? The majority of his "czars" are former lobbyists that still maintain ties to their focus constituencies.

I'm tired of the "Bush-bashing", but Obama has one extremely valid point about a major failure of the Bush administration... Bush rushed to war and didn't raise taxes to help pay for it. These are the only times in American history that we have been involved in a time of war without a tax increase. That was a huge blunder of that administration - but Obama and the Democrat leadership doesn't take the blame for the other half of the economic crash, which is the Congressional mandate of banks to engage in risky lending behavior by offering sub-prime mortgages.

He talked about transparency again. So far he has not shown us that transparency to the extent that Americans have come to expect it. Where were the open, televised deliberations? Why weren't the proposed bills put online for constituents to read like they are on the state level? Why aren't the lawmakers given the time to read over the bill and discuss them with their constituents? The people must have the opportunity to speak.

He spoke a great deal about job growth, and this is one area that sounded great, but it has me wondering about where his thoughts are about the roles of unions in this job growth. Unions had their place. Unions had their time. I'm not saying that they have no place in today's society, but I do believe that unions have contributed to America's mass-export of jobs to other countries where the labor is cheaper. I do believe that unions exist in part to propagate themselves, just like any other enterprise. They should do a better job of working together to make sure the company can survive and the workers can continue to have a place to work, but this isn't always the case. And I might add that when I heard about unions being exempt from the taxes that everyone was going to have to pay to fund health care, I about flipped my lid.

...and the new rail line in Florida... it's work and it's clean energy (by historical comparison), but why did the Government (the taxpayers) have to foot the bill? Sure, grants are often expected for portions of these projects, but if CSX can invest in themselves to build rail lines and prop up their industry, why couldn't the rail line in Florida have been partially funded by private dollars in exchange for the chance at entrepreneurship and personal prosperity - which could lead to more than just work, but real jobs. Careers. Lasting security. Retirement potential.

While I applaud the President's plea to higher education to start to control their own costs so tuition can be more reasonable, I think it's irresponsible to put an expiration date on student debt. One of the problems in America is that people spend and spend, but don't feel the responsibility to pay back the debt. They file bankruptcy, they negotiate pennies on the dollar, they withhold payment until banks and credit card companies are thankful to get whatever they can get just to get the debt off their books. Is bankruptcy necessary? Yes. Is it abused? Yes. But if there's an expiration date on student debt, or if the idea is to send everyone to college to wants to go, who pays for that debt? The American taxpayer.

Nuclear energy. A reduction in capital gains. A step-back and cool off plea regarding health care. Calling Washington out on their bickering. I agree with all of it. Off-shore drilling, new industry in tech and clean energy, I'm good to go.

I like him. He's good TV, he's good family. He has a great sense of humor. I have hope that he'll move more to the center and be a uniter, based on what he said tonight. But his record so far makes me a doubter as to what he's really thinking. I have doubts about the truth behind the teleprompted eloquence he predictably delivered, despite the fact that I want so badly to believe he'll come through for us.

...and that's the way I see it.

Brand New Day

Obama campaigned on the ticket, "Change You Can Believe In". Tonight's landslide in Massachusetts is the beginning of change HE can count on.

He said some tell-tale things during his stump speech for Martha Coakley that really showed his true colors, and showed what we Americans need to know about his character. We already know he dislikes America. We already know that he believes that Americans are stingy, selfish, uncultured and self-absorbed. But his comments last weekend offended me to no end.

Some highlights and my comments:

"Martha knows the struggles Massachusetts working families face because she's lived those struggles. Their stories are her story. You heard her -- she was raised in North Adams, one of five kids. Her dad owned a small business. Her mother was a homemaker. She worked her way up. Nothing was handed to her."

This "hand-out" idea was a major theme for Obama that day. Let me ask... if he's so against hand-outs and so proud of Coakley for rising up on her own, why is he so intent on social justice, redistribution of wealth and the idea that the successful people need to provide for the unsuccessful people? He's talking out of both sides of his mouth.

"It's whether we're going to have a future where everybody gets a shot in this society, or just the privileged few."

This is the comment that ticked me off. He blathered on as if the only people who can get ahead are people who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths. He should know as well as anyone - this foreigner with black skin and a drug habit in his youth who is now President of the United States of America - that with enough hard work and self-determination, anyone can pull themselves out of the quagmire and succeed. He did it. He's not privileged. He wasn't born into money. He had a broken home. He's President now.

I've never asked for anything from anyone. I own my own company, but it was a struggle to do so, and it continues to be a struggle every day, particularly now. I'm not privileged, and nobody gave me my shot. I wanted a shot AND I TOOK IT.

I was VERY offended by that comment of his. He knows better. He's playing the populist, but he's doing it wrong and he's pissing off his constituents.

Now - let's move on:

"Because it's easy to say you're independent and you're going to bring people together and all that stuff -- until you actually have to do it."

Oh. Really? No kidding? For two years or more he used the phrase "bring people together", but all he's accomplished is to divide us even further and to stick a middle finger up at anyone who disagrees by just shutting them out. He shut the doors of transparency and has been working behind closed doors on his pending health care and energy bills. It was easy for him to use that phrase himself, but when he couldn't do it he just plain gave up... and considering he has an overwhelming majority in both houses, there's no reason for that kind of snubbery.

Here's more:

"I kept a campaign promise to cut taxes for 95 percent of working Americans. Cut taxes. And these members of Congress right here voted to cut taxes here in the commonwealth not just for individuals, but also for small businesses. We cut taxes for middle-class families. That was part of the Recovery Act."

Sure. Legislate a tax cut. Fine. But he's going to get your money, no matter what bracket you're in. Whether he's raising taxes on energy, or taking more money out of your paycheck to pay for government-run health care, or causing banks to raise their fees (and pass them on to you) because of the taxes Obama wants to impose on them. His tax cuts are "virtual". They're up in a cloud somewhere, because I'm a middle class businessman and I was really afraid of what his policies were going to do to me and my business.

"It was your tax dollars that saved Wall Street banks from their own recklessness, keeping them from collapsing and dragging our entire economy down with them. // Now, we've recovered most of your money already, but I don't think "most of your money" is good enough. We want all our money back. We're going to collect every dime. That's why I proposed a new fee on the largest financial firms -- to pay the American people back for saving their skin."

If the money is paid back with interest, why do we need to punish the banks? Their debt to the American people is paid, so let's let them do their private business out of government hands. Can we regulate the financial sector better? Sure. Some additional regulations will go far towards helping us avoid another meltdown. But those recommendations should be made not to limit wage compensation, but to stifle predatory lending, restrict unsecured mortgages and to build non-governmental watchdogs who can tell the Barney Franks and the Chris Dodds that they cannot pressure private entities to mire themselves down in risky debt the likes of which caused this terrible recession. The credit market is already overly tight. Additional fees and taxes will slow down the credit market even more.

Obama and Coakley were counting on the "progressive", liberal track record of the Massachusetts voters:

"You will carry on the best, progressive, forward-looking values of this proud commonwealth..."

No, they didn't.

But as happy as Republicans are about this victory and this message to Washington DC, they cannot get too full of themselves. The GOP still has a long way to go to fix their own house. Just like the Democrats had difficulty getting themselves together for years, the Republicans have a similar dilemma. The centrist/McCain republicans have almost become a separate party from the Tea-Party Conservatives. The Pawlentys are disagreeing with the Palins in the direction of the GOP. While I mention it - Sarah Palin should NOT run for President in 2012. She should NOT have quit the governorship because that was her best chance to redeem herself politically in the eyes of the nation. Now she's got no political clout, she has too many fires to put out and she doesn't have anyone except the Tea-Party conservatives on her side... and many of them don't want her to run either.

Tonight's Massachusetts vote changes the game a bit in Washington, but it's only one more vote. Yes, it kills the 60-seat filibuster-proof Democrat stranglehold, but the majority stands. The GOP has about 6 months to get their house in order, or they're going to unravel and the Democrats will maintain a heavy majority. The GOP-vs-Conservative fight cost Republicans the Senate seat in New York. They need to settle down, buckle up and come to a consensus.

But in the meantime, the Dems lost a seat and tomorrow may be the dawn of a brand new day. For the first time in a year - almost to the day - I feel some hope towards the future.

... and that's the way I see it.