I'm so ticked off that the president would lower himself way beneath the presidency on the fiscal mess we are in. Let me set the stage:
On January 10th, 2010, Obama said both political sides need to come to agreements, not demagogue the other sides plans. Doing this, he said, would be unhealthy to our political process. And remember, this is from the former candidate who said he would change the poisoned political well.
Obama had several chances to discuss our fiscal crisis; all of the Continuing Resolutions the congress kept passing, the State of the Union Address, a response to his own debt commission's findings, his 2011 budget proposal, etc, etc, etc.... As you can see, he had ample opportunities to discuss his broad plan to tackle our fiscal problems.
Instead, it was reported in about every media outlet that the Obama plan was to "wait" for Budget Chairman Paul Ryan to come out with his proposal, a plan that would tackle our long-term problem of the entitlement programs. A solution that would protect those at or entering retirement age, and enabling the plans to continue. Obama's team thought that they would wait for Ryan's plan to gain the upper hand politically. After all, it's much easier to lambast the other persons proposal than coming up with a plan of your own.... especially when it hits on sensitive topics as Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. These of course, are our biggest drivers of our fiscal mess. And now, Standard & Poor's said yesterday we are on the verge of having our credit rating downgraded our debt from "stable" to "negative".
Here's the order of what happened when Obama FINALLY gave his address, weeks after Ryan's proposal:
1. Invites Paul Ryan to have a front row seat at his speech on our financial mess.
2. Spends more than half of his speech ridiculing Ryan's plan; essentially saying Ryan's plan didn't want to help kids with autism, down syndrome, the elderly, helpless, etc.; saying these people can fend for themselves under the Ryan plan. All the while, Ryan wanted to only protect the millionaires and billionaires (hello class warfare). Not only was this untrue, this was EXACTLY what Obama said in 2008, as well as in his speech on Jan 10, 2010 that is corrupting our political process. Nonetheless, Obama does this to Ryan. Very ugly!!
To the issue of Ryan's plan- According to Obama's own deficit commission (which he cites often in speeches, yet hasn't embraced much of it in policy), it says that there would be 3 different tax rates- 8,14, and 23 percent, all the while taking out many tax loopholes and deductions we are used to. In Ryan's plan, the top rate is actually HIGHER than Obama's commission's 23 percent (for the rich). However, Obama is either demogoguing without knowing the facts, or he is flat out lying!
3. Obama only gives broad strokes to his plan. In other words, he doesn't really have a plan; he's just used theories in a few speeches. This includes: taxing the rich (read: Small Business Owners), cut defense (although the Pentagon shot back the following day that this is a pipe dream that cannot happen right now), and cutting waste in Medicare and Medicaid (that's a cop out proposal, something that if it could be done, wouldn't it have been done by now?). He didn't mention Social Security, apparently thinking this has long-term solvency. Even many liberal commentators said his plans were all well and good, but did NOT offer specifics. If we're to get serious about our mess, shouldn't specifics have been offered?
As most Americans are clearly seeing, this president has more interest in getting re-elected, than tackling our country's problems. And two smart people can disagree on ideas, but at least Ryan showed the moxie to come out with real ideas with meat on them. Obama on the other hand, showed he's a flat wimp on this issue!
On the Paul Ryan front: Man, that guy has class. He sat through the whole speech, even though it distorted his plan from a to z. Nonetheless, he sat through the wreckage of the teleprompter in chiefs failed leadership on this issue. Here's hoping that Ryan would run for President. Not only would Ryan most likely win, but he would wax Obama's ass on the floor when the debate came to budget/fiscal matters. That would be incredibly satisfying to me, as someone who had his blood boiling during Obama's speech.
Finally, I can't help but once again think how a basketball or football coach would view Obama as a leader? Would you ever want to follow him into battle? He NEVER shows leadership aspects... never. Case in point: Punting on our fiscal crisis as mentioned above, saying the Libya leader HAS to go, yet also saying we WON'T force him out, failing to lead on the trainwreck known as Obamacare, the gulf oil spill, etc.
PAUL RYAN in 2012!!!
