Obama's Toxic Speech

Obama's speech was a farce of course. In the true manner of a "community organizer," Obama rallied a disbelieving America toward class warfare. None of this should be a surprise coming from a man who was a good friend to Bill Ayers, attended Reverend Wright's church for so many years, and is credited with writing the book Dreams of my Father. When the going gets tough, the community organizers point the fingers and lay out the blame.

Does anybody even remember the "Great Uniter" rhetoric, the "light-bringer" promises?

From The Wall Street Journal:

"The immediate political goal was to inoculate the White House from criticism that it is not serious about the fiscal crisis, after ignoring its own deficit commission last year and tossing off a $3.73 trillion budget in February that increased spending amid a record deficit of $1.65 trillion. Mr. Obama was chased to George Washington University yesterday because Mr. Ryan and the Republicans outflanked him on fiscal discipline and are now setting the national political agenda.

"Mr. Obama did not deign to propose an alternative to rival Mr. Ryan's plan, even as he categorically rejected all its reform ideas, repeatedly vilifying them as essentially un-American. 'Their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America,' he said, supposedly pitting 'children with autism or Down's syndrome' against 'every millionaire and billionaire in our society.' The President was not attempting to join the debate Mr. Ryan has started, but to close it off just as it begins and banish House GOP ideas to political Siberia.

"Mr. Obama then packaged his poison in the rhetoric of bipartisanship—which 'starts,' he said, 'by being honest about what's causing our deficit.' The speech he chose to deliver was dishonest even by modern political standards."

Yup. When the chips are down for a Leftist, then it's time to try to play class against class, driving people apart for political gain. Classic. Absolutely classic.

Jacobson at Legal Insurrection had this to say:

"Barack Obama promised us hand-to-hand combat, and his speech yesterday was the start.

"The nation is facing a debt crisis of historic proportions, but nothing will be done because Obama already has launched his presidential campaign. A compromise must included serious changes to unsustainable entitlements which are swamping the Treasury. Yet Obama took any significant changes off the table yesterday, by channeling Alan Grayson's charge that Republicans want people to die quickly.

[...]

"The truth is that Obama doesn't care about the deficit. Obama proposed a budget not long ago which would have increased spending and the deficit. It was only after the recent showdown over last year's budget that Obama decided that politically he needed to appear to be attentive.

"Yesterday's speech was a calculated move by someone who doesn't care about the deficit to pretend to care so that he could use the issue in political hand-to-hand combat.

"If you don't think 2012 is the make-or-break political year for this country, then you haven't been paying attention."

Indeed. Can we imagine the results of four more years of this kind of divisiveness?

I think that Pat Austin at And So it Goes in Shreveport had the best summation of Obama's speech:

"The bottom line of Obama's plan is that we're going to forge ahead with green energy even though it doesn't exist. We're going to buy oil from foreign sources even though we have plenty of resources here and gas is climbing to $5 a gallon. We're going to cut defense while we're engaged in three wars, raise taxes on those who provide jobs and growth, and implement a health care albatross that will saddle the country with inferior care, raise the deficit and expand entitlements, further deepening our economic woes."

It seems that Obama is absolutely determined to impose upon us a centrally controlled economic system. Is this a surprise to anyone based on Obama's background, his rhetoric and speeches, his past associates, his books?

And of course this centralized system that has never worked-- no matter how draconian the implementation. Centralizing a large economy has always resulted in massive inefficiencies, terrible shortages of goods and services, an expansion of poverty, an increased gap between rich and poor, and massive corruption. How many times do these systems have to fail before people stop trying?

From Paul Ryan's response as published in The Washington Post:

"Two months ago, President Obama submitted a budget for fiscal 2012 that did not deal with the major sources of government spending while calling for much higher taxes on American businesses and families. This budget was widely panned as lacking seriousness.

"Now comes a deficit speech that doesn’t even rise to the level of a plan. Missing was a credible way to curb out-of-control spending. Instead, the president called for greater reliance on government price controls, which would strictly limit the health-care options of current seniors while failing to control costs. The president would couple this approach with $1 trillion in tax increases, which would destroy jobs and hurt the economy.

"We cannot accept an approach that starts from the premise that ever-higher levels of spending and taxes represent America’s new normal. We have an obligation to fulfill the mission of health and retirement security for current retirees and future generations. We have a historic commitment to limited government and free enterprise. And we have a duty to leave the next generation with a more prosperous nation than the one we inherited.

"The House Republican budget keeps America’s promises to seniors and those near retirement by making no changes to their current arrangements. It keeps America’s promises of health and retirement security for future generations by saving and strengthening our most important programs. And it keeps a promise that is implicit in our form of government: that a government instituted to secure our rights must be a limited government.

[...]

"The president’s proposals are aimed more at empowering government than strengthening the free market. He continues to prove he’s not up to the challenging work of reforming government to meet 21st-century needs. If he gets his way, the nation will endure huge tax hikes, seniors’ access to health care will be reduced — and we will experience an epic collapse of our health and retirement programs that would devastate our nation’s most vulnerable citizens.

"House Republicans are fighting to prevent this. Our budget offers a compassionate and optimistic contrast to a future of health-care rationing and unbearably high taxes. We lift the crushing burden of debt, repair the safety net, make America’s tax system fair and competitive, and ensure that our health and retirement programs have a strong and lasting future. These issues are too important to leave to the politics of the past. If President Obama won’t lead, we will."

The stakes are very high now. Fiscal sanity must be implemented. Failure to do so will be disastrous.