SOTU speech a week from Tuesday: What should President Obama say?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

What should President Obama say in his SOTU speech, before a joint session of Congress and the USSC a week from Tuesday?

WHAT'S YOUR OPINION?



IMO, the President should focus on the economy, and point out the big difference between its short-term and long-term needs. He should have the "bikini chart" above behind him at the beginning, as he points out that the economy has turned around from the job hemmorhaging he inherited from Bush, but that renewal of the payroll tax cut and long-term unemployment benefits is crucial just to continue the modest job growth we've achieved. To make that growth more robust in the short-run, he needs to push his entire American Jobs Act agenda, especially infrastructure spending.

IMO the President should point out that virtually every economist agrees budget deficits and debt are a longer-term problem, which must be solved by "winning the future" with higher economic growth through business infrastructure investment (internet backbones, airports, highways, bridges, modern electric grids) and investment in education (school building upgrades, Pell grants, "race to the top" reforms, etc). He should look back to Bill Clinton's near-elimination of the debt with similar policies in the late 90s, before George Bush squandered more that a trillion and a half dollars worth of Social Security cash flow and borrowed additional trillions to put both the short-term economy and the long-term economy in the ditch again

He should contrast his PROVEN vision for the short-term and the long term with that of the obstructionist Republicans, who are exactly wrong on both the short-run and the long run. They propose cutting unemployment benefits and other economic boosters now, and cutting back on Pell Grants and infrasturucture spending both now and in the future.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. Agreed. Focus upon the economy. Then apologize for (1) the recent "Free Trade Agreements"

with South Korea, Columbia, and Panama, in furtherance of a concept that begun with Bush I and were promoted by Bush II. They are designed to lower wages in this country and further the wage-race to the bottom.

Then (2) apologize for approving and adopting the Republican-sponsored payroll tax cuts which will weaken and undermine Social Security.

(3) Apologize for not pushing for the employment tax credit which, as a 2008 candidate, he promoted. If lowering taxes for employing U.S. workers is a good idea, why didn't he push harder for it.

(4) Apologize for more war spending for endless wars instead of using those squandered funds for infrastructure here in the United States.

(5) Apologize for having an Administration which approves of the privatization of education, and the transfer of wealth for privatized school systems instead of increasing and expanding public education.

(6) Apologize for his plans to reduce governmental employment at a time when this country is in a depression, recession, or whatever term is politically acceptible.

(7) Apologize for taking three years before, once again, recognizing that the poor economy is a serious problem to many Americans and the country as a whole.

(8) Apologize for giving billions, or trillions, to the banksters instead of ordering that they be investigated and prosecuted.

Plan B -- Or, if he can't do that, he can say something along the line of "It's all Bush's fault." And "Re-elect me or otherwise you'll get Gingrich, Rmoney, or another undesirable Republican."

[ProgressiveEconomist]

3. That's how Democrats win in November?

I won't comment on the economic misperceptions I see in many of your proposed apologies.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

8. It's a sure thing. Just as no majority would vote for Insane McCain, no majority will vote for the

Republican candidate.

If you think that there is a viable Republican candidate, who is it?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

10. Why do anything to help the Rs?

I find it amazing how many Americans are willing to vote for ridiculously unqualified candidates. While Obama-Biden got twice as many electoral votes as McCain-Palin, their popular-vote margin was fewer than 10 million out of 131 million, 53 percent to 46 percent. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008 .)

IMO, McCain's unwillingness to purse the Rev. Wright racebaiting Fox News and others were pushing was tje ,aom reason McCain-Palin aren't heading the Executive Branch today. Thank goodness for McCain's dark-skinned adopted Bangladeshi daughter. How could he have looked her in the eye ever again had he cone along with the racist campaign many Rs wanted to wage?

I doubt any of the remaining 2012 Republican candidates would have any such compunction.

So NO apologies next Tuesday, OK?

[AnotherMcIntosh]

11. "Why do anything to help the Rs?" The candidates, all of them, find it profitable.

Obama had an opportunity to reverse Bush's policies, to restore the rule of law, to work for the 99%, and to be a great president.

131 million voted for him, even without him having a history of greatness. As you say, he got twice as many electorial votes than did McCain. He had the popular and political support behind him. He could have been a great president.

Some of his 2008 supporters still want the rule of law restored. Some still want economic fairness. Some still want a future for their children, their grand-children, and the country as a whole.

The response from his "most ardent supporters"? You know, the ones who are indifferent to the rule of law, economic fairness, and other Democratic principles. They are reduced to calling Democrats who want Democratic principles to be followed "purists." They are reduced to saying silly things such as "You're disappointed because you didn't get a pony." They are reduced to arguing that people should vote for him because he's not Gingrich, because he's not Rmoney, or not-this-week's-current-Republican-frontrunner.

Whether the Republicans are racists or not, the plain fact is that Obama betrayed us time and time again in favor of the 1%. He's going to be elected again. Easily. Although he came into office without any signifigant portfolio, and many of us had high hopes for him while voting for him because he was not Hillary Clinton, the last three years have shown that he's going to betray us again. It's just a matter of how far. It's just a matter of what else have the 1% of the 1% thought of as a way to undermine the entire country.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

12. IMO you shd read Newsweek (Jan 23rd)

and the GD discussion at http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002174267 .

From http://www.politico.com/playbook :
"FIRST LOOK By MIKE ALLEN | 01/15/12 12:37 PM EDT

... President Obama is on Newsweek's cover, 'Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb? Andrew Sullivan on the man with a plan': '(I)t remains simply a fact that Obama has delivered in a way that the unhinged right and purist left have yet to understand or absorb.

Their short-term outbursts have missed Obama's long game.... (T)he president begins by extending a hand to his opponents; when they respond by raising a fist, he demonstrates that they are the source of the problem; then, finally, he moves to his preferred position of moderate liberalism and fights for it without being effectively tarred as an ideologue or a divider.

This kind of strategy takes time. And it means there are long stretches when Obama seems incapable of defending himself, or willing to let others to define him, or simply weak. I remember those stretches during the campaign against Hillary Clinton. I also remember whose strategy won out in the end.'"

[AnotherMcIntosh]

13. Andrew Sullivan is a conservative who admits being a conservative. He uses Orwellian newspeak.

Because some know that he is a conservative, with a conservative brain who can out-think those with lizard brains who readily respond to fear tactics, he sometimes seeks to minimize his conservative credentials by referring to himself as being a "conservative-minded independent."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511711

Why aren't the principles of FDR, and the Democratic Party generally, good enough for him?

So, he's now a "conservative-minded independent." In his world, up is down, black is white, and those who prefer FDR-type principles are "purists" or "dumb Obama critics" who have joined the Republicans.

If Andrew Sullivan influences your life, let me know when he becomes a liberal or a progressive. That will be the day when pigs fly.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

14. So you don't like the author

But what about what he's saying? Like Bill Clinton, President Obama has used a long-term strategy to get historic legislative victories early on and then, after that tactic yields zero marginal returns, to "go after" Republicans to win a second term.

Chris Mathews often calls that second tactic "attacking from the defensive position". Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali's manager, called the entire two-phase strategy "Rope-A-Dope",

Not everyone in the country is a "purist" Democrat, or even a Democrat at all. The strategy you seem to advocate would have produced no health care reform, no middle class tax cuts, no financial reform, no extended benefits for the unemployed, and a certain election of Republicans to power in all three branches of government in 2012.

But the Obama-Clinton strategy gets results. IMO, President had no choice but to appease the Rs until after last year's vote to raise the debt ceiling. Had the Rs succeeded in making the US unable to pay its debts, worldwide economic chaos would have ensued.

After getting the ceiling raised, it came time for the President to switch to attack mode, with the American Jobs Act and Teddy-Roosevelt populism. The Rs' obstructionism has painted them into a corner, where President Obama now can pound them into oblivion with no voter backlash against Democrats. Your way IMO would have made Democrats look like ideologically-driven bullies, ensuring that voters would turn to a Romney to terminate Medicare and appoint young right-wing extremists to the USSC.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

2. "Bikini graph: link broken

Graphic links seems to be broken temporarily sitewide in my source for the latest bikini graph,
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/private_sector_jobs_looking_mu034559.php .

They should come back up eventually IMO.

[lib2DaBone]

4. He should apologize for all his terrible appointments....

..for pandering to Republicans and carrying out Bush's Republican agenda.

Korean Trade, NDAA, Gitmo, Torture, tax breaks for the wealthy, .....just to name a few.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

6. See post #3 above

[rug]

5. "Fuck Ron Paul."

[ProgressiveEconomist]

7. Do you think he should spend any

time on libertarianism? IMO Ron Paul's only relevance to November is in two areas:

(1) His possible third-party run, which Democrats should silently encourage; and
(2) possible influence on what nobody ever pays any attention to (The Republican platform)

[rug]

9. No, that was a joke of sorts.

But he might allude to why Paul's views on government are so wrong by contrasting what his own administration of goverment has done.

[gulliver]

15. It will suck to be Republican

Obama is going to have a lot to say. It will suck to be Republican. They are to blame for the recession. Their foreign policy and security panic attacks under Bush cost the country large. Their presidential candidate is a Wall Street raider who looks like a cross between Dick Morris and Lyle Waggoner. It won't be pretty.