April 14, 2011
The "Fiddler" ...
Pundit and Pundette
William Jacobson: Barack Obama is temperamentally unfit to be President, someone who is incapable of getting out of campaign mode even on issues of great national importance.Read the rest. Jacobson quotes Charles Krauthammer, who calls the speech a disgrace:
This was a moment when Obama could have proven that he was the uniter he claimed to be not a divider, when he could have set forth an alternative plan without demeaning Republicans. No one could have expected Obama to stand there and say that he would agree to the Ryan plan, but no one should have expected a full frontal assault on the motives and humanity of those with whom he has policy disagreements. If Obama had signaled a readiness to reach across the aisle, to seek common ground without guaranteeing an outcome, he would have been presidential. Instead, there were just a few throw away lines about compromise at the end of a long screed.
“I rarely heard a speech by a president so shallow, so hyper-partisan and so intellectually dishonest, outside the last couple of weeks of a presidential election where you are allowed to call your opponent anything short of a traitor. But, we’re a year-and-a-half away from Election Day and it was supposed to be a speech about policy. He didn’t even get to his own alternative until more than halfway through the speech. And when he did, he threw out numbers suspended in mid-air with nothing under them with all kinds of goals and guidelines and triggers that mean nothing. The speech was really about and entirely an attack on the [Rep. Paul] Ryan plan.”And an attack on Paul Ryan himself, and anyone else who supports his plan to save our economy and our country. From the speech:
It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them. If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can’t afford to send them. Go to China and you’ll see businesses opening research labs and solar facilities. South Korean children are outpacing our kids in math and science. Brazil is investing billions in new infrastructure and can run half their cars not on high-priced gasoline, but biofuels. And yet, we are presented with a vision that says the United States of America – the greatest nation on Earth – can’t afford any of this.Not only is our president unable or unwilling to see the cliff edge approaching; he vilifies anyone who does, as he steps on the gas. Interesting that he deliberately invited Ryan to attend the speech, giving his dishonest attack on him and his plan a personal, vicious, aspect. I didn't think it was possible, but my opinion of Barack Obama has just dropped even lower. This is a small man. And instead of being elevated by the office, he's shrinking, and dragging the office and the country down with him.
It’s a vision that says America can’t afford to keep the promise we’ve made to care for our seniors. It says that ten years from now, if you’re a 65 year old who’s eligible for Medicare, you should have to pay nearly $6,400 more than you would today. It says instead of guaranteed health care, you will get a voucher. And if that voucher isn’t worth enough to buy insurance, tough luck – you’re on your own. Put simply, it ends Medicare as we know it.
This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone’s grandparents who wouldn’t be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we’d be telling to fend for themselves.
Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about it. In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined. The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. And that’s who needs to pay less taxes? They want to give people like me a two hundred thousand dollar tax cut that’s paid for by asking thirty three seniors to each pay six thousand dollars more in health costs? That’s not right, and it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President.
The fact is, their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America. As Ronald Reagan’s own budget director said, there’s nothing “serious” or “courageous” about this plan. There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill. And this is not a vision of the America I know.
Related:
A terrible speech from a terrible president
Ryan's response to Obama: Partisan, inaccurate, inadequate
"I thought it was a disgrace!" ...
