President Obama today made what I consider to be a good speech on the direction he would like to see our country go, and how he believes we should get there. As someone who has been critical of many of Mr. Obama's past decisions (No public option for health care, tax cuts for the wealthy, lack of direction in Afghanistan, and even his recent capitulation on the 2011 budget) I am relieved to see him drawing the preverbal line in the sand in regards to what he is willing to do to pass a budget in 2012 (and also perhaps where he will stand on the debt ceiling issue). The Republican response to the presidents speech was both predictable and sad.
But lets take a look at what Mr. Obama said today: That he refuses to renew tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans; going into the 2012 campaign, I believe this could be a good issue for the President to draw a stark contrast between himself and whoever the Republican nominee is, a contrast which has been painfully absent in past debates where I believe Mr. Obama has in the past let conservatives move the debate farther to the right and thus creating a new 'middle' and becoming Republican lite (I also believe this lack of contrast is what cost many democrats dearly, and it should be noted that those in the progressive caucus retained a very high number of their seats because they drew that line in the sand, more friendly districts notwithstanding). This will also give a badly needed boost to the President's base, which has been largely disappointed with his lack of fight.
He continued to call for investment in programs and infrastructure that are essential to the continued prosperity of our country, such as Education, clean energy, high speed rail, new job training, research and development and more. The President correctly realizes and stated that we cannot cut these important investments in our country's future and expect to compete with other countries who are increasing their commitments in these areas.
So why is it that these countries can afford these improvements? For one the vast majority have higher taxes in general and tax the rich more in particular. But another reason that is occasionally overlooked is the fact that they do not spend such a large portion of their GDP on defense. Indeed we spend more on our defense budget than the rest of the world combined and we spend our money on things that we do not need (did anyone else see the 'amphibious tank'?) Bill Maher had a great bit on his show where he correctly stated that we had spent an incredibly large amount of money on fighter jets that we have never (and probably wont) used. While I understand that the defense industry is a business and job creator, it is time to realize that throwing such a large portion of our money into a military where we get no return on our investment is a recipe for decline and eventually disaster (See USSR).
The President was also smart in recognizing that changes need to be made to medicare and medicaid but that they will only be made on his terms and not those laid out by Rep. Ryan. I believe that Mr. Obama correctly realizes that such changes would be unacceptable to his base (and to the millions of soon to be retirees that would stand to be hurt by these changes).
Before I begin to criticize Republicans, let me state two things that I agree with them on: first that the retirement age should be raised. As people begin to live longer, it makes sense that the age should rise. No country can afford to pay for 25 years of retirement for all of its of age citizens. This of course is also dependent on the type of work you are engaged in (steel workers for example may not physically be able to work any further into old age) but in general I believe the age should be raised and pegged to life expectancy. Second, I believe that all government programs should be means tested. If a person has enough money to be take care of themselves, they should not collect money or aid from the government (if during this time there are unforeseen or catastrophic circumstances then of course government aid should again be offered). But it makes no sense, under our CURRENT system for the wealthy to be assisted by the government for health care or otherwise.
But the Republicans were quite predictable in their assessment of the Presidents speech. They called it overly partisan, which of course was also the case for Rep. Ryan's budget proposal. They called it unserious and yet have no serious proposals of their own (Rep. Ryan's plan is anything but), and attacked him for playing political games, something they admittedly did quite well during the recent budget debate by using Planned Parenthood funding as a bargaining chip to get further cuts. The visible anger Rep. Cantor displayed in his remarks about the speech bely his worry that the President's plan will gain a lot of support from the public.
In the end I think the Presidents plan is actually a good compromise (I don't love every part of it and believe that in the short term more spending is in order, not less) and it is in fact the Republicans who are being overly partisan (any tax raise is a non-starter Mr. Boehner?) and lack any real vision for our country's future.