Opinions/Editorials
See other Opinions/Editorials Articles
Title: Next To Republicans, Obama Is Presidential
Source:
MarketWatch
URL Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ne ... ama-is-presidential-2011-01-26
Published: Jan 26, 2011
Author: By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
Post Date: 2011-01-26 12:25:59 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 637
Comments: 1
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Democrats sat with Republicans for President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, but a wide gulf still separates the two parties.
Despite the superficial one-night show of unity by politicians, the nation is not united. America is facing its greatest crisis of confidence in decades, and Washington isn’t helping. The two political parties fundamentally disagree about America’s problems, and what Washington should do to solve them.
Democrats continue to believe that government has a strong part to play in promoting the general welfare and helping to make America more competitive. Republicans continue to insist that government is the problem.
In his address, Obama seemed to embrace both views at once. In promising to rein in the federal debt and to make the government more efficient and streamlined, he reached out to Republicans who scored a big victory in November’s election. Read our complete coverage of the State of the Union speech.
For Republicans, there should have been a lot to like in Obama’s speech: the promise to freeze discretionary spending, the initiative to reinvent government, and the idea of reforming the tax code to eliminate loopholes and bring rates down. He even said he’d like to do something about medical malpractice suits. Read the full text of Obama’s speech.
But Obama also appealed to his own base in the Democratic Party by promising to use the power of the federal government to smooth over the rough edges of the free market and to invest in the future. He was unapologetic about the major accomplishments of his first two years, especially health-care reform, the new rules for the financial system, and the efforts to prevent a second great depression.
Mostly, Obama was Obama, trying to get us to see the better days he knows are yet to come, if only we could dare to think about the long-term rather than the next election or the next headline.
He laid out an ambitious vision for America to regain its position as the premier economic power in the world, with the federal government investing in the essential building blocks: research, education, physical infrastructure and cleaner energy.
“This is our generation’s Sputnik moment,” Obama said, referring to the strong federal response to the Soviet challenge to our technological dominance in the late 1950s. That bipartisan burst of federal support for education, basic research and applied technology not only landed men on the moon, but more importantly planted the seeds for the computer industry, the Internet and the thousands of other spin-offs from the space program that have created tens of millions of jobs and transformed our lives in hundreds of ways.
For Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, who gave the official Republican response to Obama’s speech, we’re not at a “Sputnik moment” of opportunity, but at a fateful “tipping point.” Either we turn back now, or we’ll be doomed to be a second-rate power. Read the full text of Ryan’s speech.
Ryan seems to think our biggest problem isn’t 15 million people out of work, but $14 trillion in debt. He scoffs at the stimulus spending that rescued millions from poverty and saved the economy. He rejects any notion that the government can invest wisely for the future.
While Obama sees government as sort of a venture capitalist for the next generation of cutting-edge businesses, the Republicans see only faceless government bureaucrats who slow us down, who make us lazy and soft.
Ryan and his fellow Republicans are surely right that Americans want a limited government, but Obama is probably closer to the national mood in his assessment that what we want is limited and effective government. We like our liberties, but we also like our federal highways, our universities, and our Internet.
Since that electoral shellacking in November, Obama has had three very good months. The more the Republicans dig in for partisan fights, the more presidential Obama appears. After the Gabby Giffords shooting and again at the State of the Union, Obama has had the perfect settings for his brand of visionary leadership.
Obama has been optimistic and prophetic; the Republicans have seemed merely political.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Democrats continue to believe that government has a strong part to play in promoting the general welfare and helping to make America more competitive. Republicans continue to insist that government is the problem.
Hmmmmmmm... so the elitists are still trying to push the "Two-card Monte" game, eh???
Let's cut to the chase of the matter:
"There will be no more money when the U.S. dollar has no value, until that time we can keep printing more." -- go65, LF's answer to Ben Bernanke --
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]