In his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama once again showed his mastery of the teleprompter, his disregard for the importance of details, and his impressive ability to make obvious contradictions in between his rhetoric and reality insignificant. Apparently the “Era of Responsibility” involves Americans expanding the government’s list of responsibilities and hoping government officials fulfill those responsibilities despite all evidence points to them doing the contrary.
In an effort to not sound as gloomy as he and his administration has been accused of sounding the past few weeks, the President went from pointedly describing a dreadful present, with the word “crisis” mentioned in the third sentence and constant mentions of the words “deficit” and “recession,” to promising a rosy future with clean energy, the world’s highest graduation rate, and even a cure for cancer. How can anyone argue with that?
Of course, I would absolutely love a car that doesn’t run on a gas, for my brother to get a free college education, and to not have to worry about anyone in my family suffering from cancer. I would also love to know how exactly this is all going to happen and who exactly will pay for it? The sad truth is these wonderful promises will probably not be kept but our generation and our children’s generation will be saddled with the costs of government expansion regardless.
I’m usually not the one to be pessimistic in the face Americans dreaming to achieve great feats, but how on earth can we call ourselves responsible when we are dreaming at the cost of generations to come?
“The cost of inaction” is far greater, the President says. That is true as long as we are acting correctly. But if our choice is between inaction and acting incorrectly, then inaction would be me much cheaper. If we did such simple things as having Congressmen read over gargantuan spending bills before voting for them and posting the bills online before they come up to vote, an idea originally advocated but subsequently ignored by our transparent leaders, I’d be much more inclined to believe we were going to act correctly instead of just throwing money we don’t have at problems we need specific solutions for. What the specifics of the solutions are I still don’t know after sitting through the over fifty minutes of applause lines.
It’s not that I refuse to trust our President. It’s that that I cannot bring myself to take his calls for responsibility seriously. Not when his mortgage bailout would punish the responsible 92% of homeowners, many of whom are indeed struggling, for paying their mortgages on time and reward those who moved into homes they couldn’t afford. Not when he talks about the responsibility we have to place a “market-based cap on carbon pollution” and doesn’t even mention nuclear energy, the most realistic non-carbon producing energy source we have. Not when he surrounds himself with people who fail to act responsibly in their personal financial matters and fail to see how their grim public comments make the stock market nose dive on a regular basis.
Presidents Obama’s speech is being praised as the most expansive agenda in decades. Funny how not even his most ardent supporters are calling it the most responsible.
Last 5 posts by Abel S. Delgado
- Let’s Support the Cantwell-McCain Bill - January 6th, 2010
- Deeds Gets Dirty, Doesn’t Win Anyway - November 2nd, 2009
- Obama & The Berlin Wall - October 25th, 2009
- The Nobel Prom King - October 11th, 2009
- Bureaucratizing Interrogations a Horrible Idea - August 28th, 2009
