Stacy Washington: on President Obama’s State of the Union address

Proposing lots of new spending through lofty promises and soundbites borrowed from the proposals of his presidential challengers, President Obama attempted to create an atmosphere of bipartisanship and making it appear he was tacking to the middle.

Obama spoke about fixing tons of problems facing America, but I would argue this was one of the most unserious State of the Union Addresses in the modern era of politics.  It began with his veiled demagoguery.  His speech was filled with platitudes that sadly hearkened back to his first State of the Union Address, when he made far too many promises and delivered on virtually nothing.  The speech, especially toward the end, had the feeling of a campaign rally.

Expecting that Obama would seriously address Social Security, Medicare and lay out a clear plan for entitlement reform was apparently too large a task for this second-term president’s State of the Union Address.  Instead, he spent far too much time flitting from topic to topic without any real new ideas or interesting proposals.

The President did speak of passing a budget for the first time in four years, but couched it in promises to solve America’s problems with more government.  If there’s ever to be a serious discussion on cutting the deficit and reigning in out of control spending, it did not begin tonight.

This snippet is cross posted from Amy Ridenour’s Conservative Blog over at Project 21