I guess that's his job though. The State of the Union Address necessitates that the president pull out his Motivator-in-Chief mantle and assure the American people that the State of our Union is indeed strong. But thankfully, that's only one aspect of the SOTU; it's also a chance for him to lay out in broad terms what his administration's policy objectives are for the next year. President Obama talked about five key topics: innovation, education, infrastructure, deficits, and security. Innovation also acted as a sort of meta-topic to tie the other four together. This resulted in the truly unfortunate catchphrase that America must "win the future," the wording of which seems to imply that the future is a contest, one you can only 'win' at the expense of the other players. What a terrible attitude! I really hope this phrase doesn't catch on...
Main Points in Each Topic
Innovation: Spark creativity, encourage private investment in R&D, submit a budget with its investment priorities in order re. education/ environmental policy/innovation, target goals for future renewable energy use. The only really interesting part of this was Obama's mention of paying for renewable energy research through eliminating oil subsidies. If that actually happens I might have to reevaluate my levels of political cynicism...
Education: responsibility lies first with the family, can't just pour money at problem, institution of "Race to the Top" program, goal of again having highest proportion of college grads in world. I'm glad he took the opportunity to talk up the DREAM Act again, even if not by name.
Infrastructure: Put more Americans to work through increased infrastructure spending (much of it private?), ask congress to simplify corporate tax code, reduce barriers to growth through removal of unnecessary government regulations.
Deficits: Freeze annual domestic discretionary spending, note that repealing health care law would increase deficit, restate necessity of repealing millionaire tax cuts. His big promise here was to develop a proposal to reorganize (ie shrink) the executive branch bureaucracy. On a purely selfish level, this proposal sounds like one more thing that will make it even more difficult for a soon-to-graduate poli sci student to find a job, so i don't know how in favor of it I am... Oh, and he also promised to veto any bill with earmarks? That statement confuses me. it sounds totally unenforceable. What is his definition of earmark?
Security: START and DADT passed, More troops are out of Iraq, some unspecified level of troops will start leaving Afghanistan next year, fighting corruption, growing democracy, blah blah. Nothing new here.
Merely by virtue of the medium, the main Presidential Theory of Power at work here is 'going public.' And one thing Obama has always been able to use very effectively is his ability to speak convincingly to the American people. Now, whether that will actually translate into people being better, more attentive parents, just because Obama said so...I'm not so sure. But his arguments promoting the DREAM Act and the importance of renewable energy might actually end up resonating with the American people.
The only two concrete examples of the president using his formal, enumerated powers were his veto threat and his promise to cut unnecessary regulations. Everything else was really just a suggestion to Congress-
the President may be able to submit a budget or proposal, but the House and Senate get to do whatever they want with it afterwards.
Overall, I wouldn't call this one of Obama's 'wow' speeches, but I don't think the State of the Union is supposed to be. It's by necessity broad and far-sweeping, but that also makes it vague and not especially helpful/informative. So I guess I support the objectives, but I'm holding out for the specifics; I'm looking for a little bit more than the statement that "we do big things."
~Michele
PS: if anyone would like a thorough rebuttal to the Republican Response, these guys have a good one:
http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201101250020
sources:
State of the Union- Full Text. ABC News. January 25, 2011.
http://www.ktnv.com/story/13895661/text-of-the-presidents-2011-state-of-the-union-address?clienttype=printable
I think it was a pretty good State of the Union. I don't know how to articulate this though, but you touched on it. It wasn't one of his strongest speeches and everyone seemed to have a tame response throughout the entire address.
ReplyDeleteYou seem a bit cynical about bipartisanship in Congress, which I can totally understand. But in order for shit to actually get done in this country both parties DO have to work together or else Congress is totally pointless. And Congress has been getting better with working together - with DADT repeal and the 9/11 Health care support to the victims thing. So I wouldn't be too cynical Michele.
I did find it interesting though that he wants to restructure the departments or agencies and rearrange the tax bracket? I thought that was a lil spicy change he threw in there haha. Eh I thought it was a decent state of the union. There were also a lot of guests the camera focused in on- a lot more than in the past I think....
Last but not least, I love those Obama art drawings you have on your blog. That is all.
Something you touched on that I didn't is his veto threat. Like you mentioned, it sounds really strong, but seems a little hard to enforce. I'm still a little confused about exactly what earmarking looks like, but here's my understanding: promising projects to interest groups with significant financial benefits within legislation. House Republicans passed a bill last November to eliminate earmarking, and Democrats are being urged to do the same. One argument I came across was that Obama was just reacting to pressure to stand strong against earmarking. And now there's a really great sound-bite for the Tea Party to use against him if he messes up. So much for working together right?
ReplyDeleteThanks for being my optimistic idealist friend, Andrew. For serious, you really do have a much better attitude towards politics than i do. I think this state of the union just got me a little down because it was so full of promises that it doesn't seem like the President is going to be able to keep.
ReplyDeleteI mean, I know what earmarks are in general, but there are just multiple working definitions, and some are much stricter than others. Like...is an earmark any time a congressperson inserts language in an approps bill that sends money to a specific place? That could be anything from additional funding for a local hospital to increasing local infrastructure spending. Or are we only talking about earmarks for projects going to private companies? Or maybe he's only interested in banning earmarks to companies that also contributed to political campaigns?
Constitutionally, it's the job of congress to pass a spending bill. Are they to have no say in where that spending goes, other than to dole it out to the appropriate executive agencies? I mean, Congresspeople are often actually the best suited to know where money needs to go in their district. It's not like I'm a bridge to nowhere fan or anything, but I think the earmarks issue isn't nearly as straightforward as the President was pretending.
yeah the earmark part of the speech was still unclear to me. the president sounded sincere and optimistic but so many of his projects are going to cost so much money and there is no guarantee that they will be profitable. he is spending too much on education, you cannot force someone to learn and achieve, that comes from within and those who choose to not work hard will find out that handouts are not apart of the real world.
ReplyDelete