I wasn't wowed or amazed in any way. My cynical side believes that this was just a promise platform for the next big election cycle. I hope this isn't actually the case.
Obama mentioned the report of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. This Commission was a bipartisan effort to look into fixing the HUGE FISCAL PROBLEMS that our nation faces. My gut feeling after hearing the SOTU is that "something's gotta give". I don't see how we can pull off "the freeze" and work on the huge infrastructure and education ideas brought up in the speech. The Commission's report laid out some fairly drastic cuts going forward. The freeze is only the first part. There are a whole slew of changes that involve more taxes and "indexing" (read higher fees) for government services. Let's just hope that we don't have some huge national emergency (I suppose the odds of a catastrophic eruption at Yellowstone are low, but Nature can surprise us) that would sap an already ailing financial system. Besides, I don't think the plans to tackle the huge problems that politicians (as Paul Ryan noted in the Republican response last night) of BOTH SIDES have foisted on us even take into account the possibility of a change in the "special status" of the US dollar.
Doom and gloom? Perhaps. I certainly don't want to see what would happen if the United States came anywhere close to defaulting on our debt. However, I'm afraid that if our country doesn't take some seriously drastic measures to cut government spending to reasonable levels, we will.
A President will NEVER get up in front of the American people and end the SOTU by saying something along the lines of:
"...and if we don't dramatically change the way our government operates and spends, the state of the Union is ROYALLY SCREWED."
Just my two cents...
No comments:
Post a Comment