State of the Union

A few picked-up pieces while waiting for the first State of the Union address of the Obama presidency...

--A "government spending freeze?" Really?! First of all, it affects 17% of the Federal budget. OK, I guess that's something, but talk about putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. What are we, a Third-World country? Read my lips: a deficit north of $1 trillion and growing by the minute means it's time for new taxes. Do it right, do it quick, and do it in one fell swoop, but the time for a now.

--Enjoy your football while it lasts. Next year is 99% certain to be uncapped and it's looking more and more likely that no new CBA will be in place in time for a 2011 season. Seems to the rest of the world like there's both more than enough money to go around and so much at stake (remember the MLB and NHL lockouts? Those leagues still haven't recovered while the NFL has become the national pastime) that a deal should happen, but it's really not looking that way.

--More from the Dept. of Counterproductive Negotiation: I'm now firmly convinced that if this country does lose influence in the world and/or come to ruin as the Fareed Zakarias of the world would have it, this congress will be at fault for that happening. Small-mindedness, parochialism, corruption, political (mental?) stupidity, squandered chances...you name it, they got it. And if they got it, it turns rotten in a real big hurry. Obama pointed out that "the ship of state doesn't stop on a dime." Fine. We get it. The problem is when the engine room telegraph is set to full speed ahead port and full speed astern starboard.

--On a related note: "the Party of 'No'?" Come on, GOP. It's ridiculous that that's even a viable opposition strategy these days, but that's no way to move forward as a country. I've said it before, I'll say it again: true conservatives don't oppose all forward progress, they just try to make sure things move at a reasonable pace. Let's think logically for a second, since it's an election year: who really wants to put senators/representatives of "No" in office? More to the point, who wants to elect a "President of 'No?'" You want the party of No, you get the representation of No, you get the president of No, you get--yep--Sarah Palin. As in no experience, no plan, and no chance of putting Humpty together again.

***

Now that the speech is over and I've gotten out of a meeting, it's time to skip a bunch of homework and stay up past my bedtime to get this thing in your in-boxes by the time your coffee's brewed tomorrow morning. Off to the races...

Overall, I'd say that was a better-than-we've-seen-recently version of Mr. Hope & Change, but still not Candidate Obama or the kind of assured, deeply grounded bravura performance that most people were hoping for. I still don't get a strong sense of what--if anything--this President is willing to fight tooth and nail for in the legislative arena. There was a lot of imploring, a lot of promising, and a lot of planning, most of which had to do with the future ("That's how budgeting works!"). There were also some good calls to the Republicans to either start cooperating or start coming up with new ideas if they're so intractably opposed to the agenda the administration is pushing. That's a solid point. As Obama noted, "Just saying no to everything might be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership." I couldn't agree more with the second half of that statement, and I'd go so far as to say that the first half is pretty off-base as well. You have to think in an awfully short term for "'No' to everything!" to look like sound politics.

Obama's short-term political agenda is clearly focused on the three best ways to fix the economy, meanwhile: Jobs, jobs, and saving Tim Geithner's hide (aka more jobs). Lots of crooked numbers about who gets tax cuts and why, which sectors need to be encouraged, where we're going to get all the money to keep stimulating growth without adding the proverbial dime to the budget (!), and so forth. All of which boiled down to acknowledging what Main Street has been crying out for some time now: We need jobs, and we need 'em yesterday. For someone with political astuteness Obama has shown previously, I'm still incredulous at how badly botched his message has been lately as executive bonuses shoot right back up while employment in fundamental industries like construction continues to dive. This royally pissed off the all-important middle class and independent voters, who took the first opportunity given them to voice their concern and chose Scott Brown to send that message loud and clear. Talk about short-sighted politics, but to a large extent Obama and the Dems got what they deserved. There's not much time left to reformulate the message before the mid-terms offer a wider referendum on the administration to date.

Other important notes from the speech:

1. Repeal "Don't ask, don't tell." I assume the Chiefs (sitting in the front row) either heard about that one or relied on decades of practice with their poker faces to keep from appearing like they had severe indigestion when this little bombshell dropped right in their laps. The policy probably should go; it's not like we've never had gays in the military before and there is of course no question regarding their fitness for duty from an operational standpoint. Still, the Pentagon is going to have a cow on this one because soldiering is by nature a fairly homophobic profession, often practiced in an environment that lends itself to exacerbating that very homophobia. It will be interesting to see if any restrictions are placed on openly gay soldiers as there are on female ones: no serving in front line infantry units, submarines, or special operations forces, to name a few. In the extremely close and rough quarters of the front lines, a metal tube under the ocean, or behind enemy lines, conventional wisdom says soldiers don't do well to have women or gays along for the ride. I'm not really advocating the conventional wisdom on this one, because I feel that both sides have some merit to their positions. The Pentagon's going postal, just watch.

2. College loan payment/forgiveness. I'm conflicted on this, too. Sounds great to those of us in college, not exactly rolling, and not necessarily opposed to 10 years of post-college public service to have all college debts forgiven after 10 years. Still, that's another welfare state element that for some reason is really getting under my skin.

3. New energy sources/leading the green economy. Good thoughts both, but also requiring significant changes in the way we think about and meet energy needs. I'm not opposed to nuclear and I certainly support leading the green economy (and thus the world economy, if Obama is to be believed), but as with all of climate change at this point, those represent only part of the picture. Carbon offsetting is a bunch of BS--it's time to get serious about what's going on around us and how we propose to fix it.

4. If the climate crisis hasn't scared the Bejeezus out of you yet (and it should), take a look at food. Food is intimately related to the climate crisis, so it makes sense to look at and try to handle the two in tandem rather than individually. Food has been a little hobby of mine lately in the sense that I've read a couple of interesting books and articles on food and diet and how the modern diet is slowly killing us and not-so-slowly killing Mother Nature. The more you learn, the more perverse it all seems and the fewer options appear but to become the most educated food consumer you can be and to be damn scrupulous with your food dollar. I can't recommend enough the value of at least doing some internet searching on industrial food production or--better--picking up a Michael Pollan book or something similar. In addition to climate change, Michelle Obama's national campaign to combat childhood obesity is a worthy and sorely needed effort.

5. Finally, the one you've all been waiting for: Barack Obama & the Supremes. To call the Court's ruling last week boneheaded would be complimentary. I won't go into full detail on why I think that ruling was 100% dead wrong, but suffice it to say that I absolutely do. Legislation such as Obama proposed tonight must be forthcoming, and fast, preferably before the mid-terms.

***

One last issue to hammer away on before I call it quits for the evening. Economics. I'm no econ major (suffering through my last required semester of econ right now), but the number of fallacies, fantasies, and just plain crap that's been emanating from the White House lately regarding the economy--this speech very much included--has been mind-boggling. Again, this isn't the space to list every single bit of gobbledy-gook and/or outright garbage, but the bottom line is that there's a lot of you-know-what flying to cover up the very obvious fact that this country is in a serious fiscal pickle. If Obama wants to talk about taking strong stands and telling "hard truths" despite poll numbers and popular opinion, it's time to talk budget, deficit, and taxes. As I mentioned at the top of the column, a spending freeze that starts next year and doesn't touch defense or entitlement spending actually freezes less than 20% of the federal budget. In times of trillion-plus dollar deficits (that will only increase between now and when the "freeze" comes into effect), that doesn't even begin to address the problem. Please, please don't insult my intelligence or this fancy education I'm working on here by telling me that all this stuff you just promised isn't going to add "a dime" (that phrase again) to the budget/deficit. Health care is not free; people won't just forgive student loans after 20 years or accept smaller payments on them without compensating somehow; defense and entitlement spending are snowballing; etc. Freezing 17% of the current budget level will probably mean less than a 15% freeze on discretionary spending by next year.

The answer, of course, is revenue. About the only times the Republican side of the Congress stood (or even applauded [jerks!]) was when Obama mentioned yet more tax breaks. Taxes may or may not stifle innovation--they probably do--but we've put ourselves in such a hole that the only way out is going to be finding new revenue streams and getting more out of the old ones. If Obama is serious about "not accept[ing] second place for the United States of America" (when was the last time you even heard that kind of thing in a State of the Union?), it's time to think a little harder about economics than faux-freezes and recycling bailout money from banks to stimulus to whatever. In the final analysis, the U.S. government is going to have to raise taxes in very explicit and painful ways for the first time in a long time in the near future. It will have to be quick and dirty, but effective. Just look at the income tax: In early U.S. history, this was unthinkable and unlawful, but the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913 finally allowed Congress to levy an income tax, which Americans have been grudgingly but pretty much automatically paying ever since. Like climate change or the ship of state, our deficits will not stop on a dime. Even freezing the budget entirely wouldn't accomplish that, and that's never going to happen. Real and painful measures will have to be enacted in the near future to begin to tackle the deficit in meaningful ways.

For now, it's back to business in the happy little hamlet of Washington, D.C. Time to find out if wearing a red tie and dressing the Veep, the Speaker, and the First Lady in purple can actually yield some bipartisanship around here. Wouldn't that make for some nice Hope 'n' Change?