Obama's 2012 State of the Union Address

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Response to Obama's State of the Union message yesterday
From: Gary L. Bauer 

COUNTDOWN TO VICTORY: 286 DAYS TO THE 2012 ELECTIONS 



A Shrinking Obama 

Is that all there is? Watching Obama deliver the State of the Union last night (with precautionary blood pressure medication at my side) I was struck by how diminished the “hope and change” President has become. Long gone is the candidate who told his supporters, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” Nowhere to be seen was the man who said his election would result in the “earth healing” and the “oceans stopping their rise.” Instead we got an hour of low expectations, distorted facts, divisive class warfare all wrapped up in the hope that the public has collective amnesia about what actually happened in the last three years while Obama was in charge. 

Fact checking the speech would take all day. But we made a short video catching Obama on a few of his misstatements. You can watch it here. 

My first shoe hit the T.V. set when Obama asserted that our oil imports have fallen under his watch. Indeed they have, but Obama counts on you not knowing why they dropped. Oil imports always drop when the American economy isn’t growing and Obama’s policies have guaranteed slow to no growth. Fewer people employed means less gasoline used. Imports have also dropped because oil industry engineers have developed new drilling techniques that have increased our domestic oil production. Obama has done everything he can to stop that increase in production, including cutting drilling back on federal land and restricting off-shore drilling. The increased production has come on private land by oil companies that Obama regularly demonizes. 

Did you notice his intentional distortions on the taxes paid by millionaires compared to average folks? Here is what Obama said: “Now you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as the secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.” 

Yes that would be common sense if it were a factual description of reality. Instead it is an intentional effort to deceive. Obama is counting on Americans confusing tax rate with net taxes. Let’s say you are a worker making approximately $50,000 a year. You would be in the 25% tax bracket and you would pay approximately $8,600 in federal taxes. Now let’s say you are a millionaire and almost all of your income comes from dividends and capital gains. For years the U.S. has taxed that kind of investment income at 15% because we want to encourage the investment that creates jobs. So the $1 million in dividends times 15% would be $150,000 in federal taxes. 

Yes the millionaire has a lower rate (15%) than the wage earner (25%), but the millionaire pays $150,000 compared to $8,600 for the worker. This is why, in spite all of Obama’s attempts to claim otherwise, the top 1% in America pay into the federal treasury 38% of all taxes collected. The bottom 50% of all Americans pay less than 3% of all taxes collected.

   BillboTex note: Millionaires who live off their investment dividends pay 15% capital gains tax in the earnings/dividends from their investments.  Obama and other anti-capitalists conveniently IGNORE the fact that the money spent on the original investment was ALSO subject to the top tier tax bracket of 35%, which means the Millionaire actually spent 50% for his federal taxes.  Additional Leftist slant is that in the case of Romney's tax exposure they try to HIDE the fact that it was LARGER than 13.9% plus 35% for a total of 48.9%, BECAUSE THEY DID NOT CALCULATE THE 15% charity contributions into the calculation for actual percentage paid for the Romney taxes.  Calculating the charitable contribution would raise Romney's federal taxes and charitable contributions to  63.9% - NOW, does that seem fair to you?  MORE LIBERAL LIES! 

This is what is so disgusting about what Obama is doing. He wants you to be angry at and despise those who have done well in the hope you won’t notice how his policies are leading us down the road to European socialism and national bankruptcy. The man who campaigned in 2008 saying he would bring us together can only remain in power if he deeply divides us by class. Obama is a Hugo Chavez democrat. 

Something else was obvious last night too. It was not only what he said but what he left out. There was no direct mention of Obamacare nor of the 3,000-page stimulus bill, both of which are politically toxic. Both issues should be a central part of the eventual GOP presidential nominee’s campaign. There was very little on job creation, and there were zero proposals to get our horrendous debt under control. This man must not be given a second term. 


The GOP Response 

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels gave the GOP response. It is a tough job to answer any President’s State of the Union, and Daniels did a reasonably good job, even if his passion seemed in short supply. This sentence jumped out at me: Speaking of the Obama Administration, Daniels said, “The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperatures is a pro-poverty policy.” 


BillboTex note: More Liberal lies hoping that no one will notice!  The Keystone project will not cost ANY tax dollars to be paid, provide possibly 100,000 jobs, prevent the sale of Canadian oil to China, and keep American gasoline prices lower - SO OBAMA REFUSES TO APPROVE THE PROJECT.  
Obama HAS approved the California High speed Rail project which WILL COST TAXPAYERS $100 TRILLION with a "T", and expected to be used by less than 5% of the California population!

Eureka! There it is. Obama is a left wing extremist. His policies will promote poverty, not growth. Every conservative in America needs to make that point every day – at work, over the back fence, at church, at school or around the dinner table. The GOP nominee has to drive it home. We can win. We must win! 

Romney: The Conservative Who Can Beat Obama

Wall Street Journal article

By former ambassador John Bolton

Mr. Bolton served in the Justice Department and the Agency for International Development under President Reagan and in the State Department under both Presidents Bush.

With America's future at stake in November, I decided to support Mitt Romney for three reasons: his Reaganaut philosophy, executive experience and general-election campaign strengths.

Our country's political focus on economic recovery has allowed President Obama to escape responsibility for his failures in the area of national security. Mr. Obama clearly doesn't recognize that lasting prosperity is impossible without robust foreign and defense policies and capabilities—and, conversely, that the requisite political, military and intelligence resources are not sustainable without a strong economy. Today's textbook example: the president's rejection of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.

Mr. Romney fully understands the inextricable prosperity-security linkage, and that America's global adversaries aren't waiting around graciously for our economic recovery. Instead, they see Mr. Obama's weaknesses and are vigorously exploiting them.

Mr. Obama has been gutting our armed forces through defense budget cuts that will total nearly $1.5 trillion if the debt-ceiling legislation's sequestration mechanism takes effect. These reductions are compelling evidence that the president is entirely comfortable with America's international retreat and decline.

The Navy has only 285 ships today, the fewest since World War I, and it is straining to uphold its unique global responsibilities. Our Air Force has only 39 fighter squadrons, fewer than half the number it had two decades ago. And yet the military's missions remain, and the threats grow.

In East Asia, for example, China is modernizing and expanding its air and naval capabilities, developing area-denial and anti-access weapons, and making increasingly assertive territorial claims, potentially restricting access to international waters. And Russia is using its international oil revenues to rebuild both its conventional and nuclear capabilities.

We cannot respond effectively at present force levels, and this weakness will only worsen as Mr. Obama's defense cuts take hold, disheartening allies and tempting adversaries. Abandoning the "peace through strength" doctrine will inevitably increase risks to America, not reduce them. Mr. Romney has promised to reverse Mr. Obama's reductions—for example, increasing the Navy's shipbuilding rate to 15 warships a year from nine and replacing the aging weapons systems that all our services field.

Mr. Romney has emphatically rejected the Obama administration's wrongheaded Russian "reset" policy, and he was the first presidential candidate to oppose the flawed New Start arms-control treaty. He understands that international terrorism remains a major threat: He has warned against Mr. Obama's withdrawal from Afghanistan along a publicly announced timetable and against his dangerously mistaken policy of negotiating with the Taliban terrorists. Those negotiations imperil everything we have won at considerable human cost since we responded to the 9/11 attacks by declaring war on terror, a war Mr. Obama daily tries to wish out of existence.

Mr. Romney also fully understands the proliferation threat of ballistic missiles and nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. He has taken strong stands on Iran and North Korea, today's two gravest risks, both badly mishandled by Mr. Obama.

And because of global proliferation, Mr. Romney's signature issue has been to build multilayered, national ballistic-missile defenses to protect us—a truly Reaganesque objective. This would constitute another major reversal of Mr. Obama's dangerous worldview, which rests on outdated strategic doctrines and inattention to the grave perils that weapons of mass destructions pose as instruments of terrorism.

Then there's Mr. Romney's executive experience in government and the private sector. The president is CEO of the federal government's executive branch, no small task. And many Republican presidents have seen their agendas broken or impaired by their failures to make the executive departments implement the policy objectives for which they campaigned.

The skills required are neither those needed for keeping a clean inbox nor for mere academic observation of business or government. And most assuredly they are not speechifying or engaging in candidate cattle shows. Executive competence is not legislative legerdemain, just as parliamentary acumen is not judicial temperament, and running small judicial chambers or congressional offices is not a qualification to run the Defense Department.

Inert, uncooperative and sometimes openly hostile bureaucracies, plus political appointees who are philosophically sound but all thumbs managerially, only begin the list of hurdles for a president to overcome. One who sees himself responsible only for the White House staff (or not even that) rather than the entire executive branch will soon find himself increasingly irrelevant.

Avoiding such failure requires sustained attention, steadiness, persistence, discipline and especially resolve. These are undramatic attributes, but they are powerfully consequential when well-used and central to a successful presidency. George H.W. Bush had them, especially in national-security matters. Mr. Obama obviously does not.

Mr. Obama's manifold failings underscore the final issue: electability. Competitors and politicos are already endlessly analyzing this question, so I'll make only three brief points.

First, there is an infinitesimally small chance that Mr. Romney will self-destruct in September or October. "No-drama Obama," meet your match. Second, Mr. Romney has the overwhelming lead in endorsements from Republican senators and representatives—the most aware, self-interested community, bar none, regarding our nominee's electability. No propensity there to grandiosity or suicide. Third, Mr. Romney shares one of Reagan's most important and attractive characteristics: being critical without being angry or scornful.

The late uber-Conservative Bill Buckley bequeathed us the right test: Pick the most conservative candidate capable of winning. That is clearly Mitt Romney.

GOP Candidate Reviews - Early

I have already COMPLETELY decided exactly who I will be voting for in November 2012.

I WILL BE VOTING FOR THE GOP CANDIDATE – TO VOTE OTHERWISE COULD RESULT IN OBAMA BECOMING A TWO TERM PRESIDENT AND ULTIMATELY AMERICA’S FIRST DICTATOR – YES, ITS THAT IMPORTANT

Any other vote may as well be cast for Obama, and I am positive that the DEMs will again have some tricks and “ringer” candidates to bleed off votes from the GOP candidate.    Vote in the primaries with your heart if you wish, but in the general election you had better vote with your head!  I believe that we may be able to defeat Obama with taking only 6% of his expected constituency.  I wish Trump was patriot enough to turn the tables on the DEMs, and run against Obama as a Democrat.  He could probably siphon off the required 6%, and he is financially capable of surviving the sacrifice.  He also stands to benefit the most from an economic recovery – with all his businesses.  I would do it if I had his Billions.

With that in mind, take a look at this post by Josh Kraushaar  “Perry: the GOP Front-Runner” posted August 15, 2011 in NationalJournal.

"Gov. Rick Perry talks like George W. Bush but might win like Ronald Reagan.  Last weekend’s Ames straw poll made for great political theater, but the important action was taking place in South Carolina and New Hampshire, where Texas Gov. Rick Perry kicked off his presidential campaign.

Perry, the straight-talking three-term governor, is bringing to the race a message and biography that couldn’t contrast any more starkly with President Obama’s.

He grew up in rural Paint Creek, Texas, farming cotton in his early years, and attending the state’s land-grant university, Texas A&M.

Obama went to Harvard Law School, earned his political chops in Chicago, spending much of his early career in academia.  Perry has governed a low-tax, low-regulation state at a time when the president has sought to expand government’s role in the economy.  The Texas governor's blunt advocacy of conservatism and faith-tinged rhetoric couldn’t be any different from Obama’s nuanced rhetoric and cautious governing style.

Obama Owns the Economy - Or Not?

POLL: Obama Hits New Low In Gallup Survey
And he’s going to be bragging about his record of job creation in Texas, compared to the economic stagnation that’s been prevalent nationwide.  The money line from his kickoff speech:  "I’ll work every day to try to make Washington, D.C. as inconsequential in your life as I can."

Those 18 words will define Perry's candidacy, and is a pitch-perfect appeal to a Republican primary and caucus electorate angry at Obama’s policies and a November electorate disenchanted about the lack of jobs and economic growth.  If he becomes the nominee, it would also set up an epic general election with two divergent visions of the appropriate role for government in American life. 

The contest for the GOP nomination, meanwhile, is shaping up to be a compelling affair between Perry and Mitt Romney, the two heavyweights in the GOP field.  Romney has run a cautious campaign, focusing more on preparing for a general election than catering to the conservative interests that predominate in Republican primaries. 

Polls show Romney as the front-runner, but one vulnerable to a serious challenge.  He achieved front-runner status after other serious contenders decided not to run or flamed out.  His campaign has been premised as much on electability as it is around a narrative about his record.  It’s a strategy that’s worked very well so far, but with Perry now in the race, he’ll need to present a compelling case for his own candidacy. 

Going after Perry as a career politician - which was the Romney campaign’s opening gambit - doesn’t sound like the most effective line of attack, given that Romney’s essentially been running for president since 2007.  This campaign has changed markedly in the last two weeks, and Romney will need to quickly show he can connect with conservatives and speak their language.

With the Ames victory, Michele Bachmann has proven her political chops, but it will be difficult for the Minnesota congresswoman to sustain her momentum throughout the nomination process - with the media spotlight on high and a Republican establishment looking to rally for the rival most likely to beat her if she gains traction.  She has to prove she can put together a coalition beyond the most ardent tea partiers and cultural conservatives.  She’ll face her toughest test holding onto support against a candidate with a more accomplished resume and his own healthy dose of charisma, to boot.

Make no mistake: Perry is no flash-in-the-pan candidate, akin to Fred Thompson in 2008 or Wesley Clark in 2004.  Just before he entered the race, national polls showed him at the top of the Republican field, narrowly behind Mitt Romney.  He wasn’t even on the Ames ballot, yet managed to tally 718 write-in votes, ahead of Romney’s total.  Despite being CARICATURED as a candidate whose appeal is limited to hard-right conservatives and Southerners, he’s spent much of his early focus in New Hampshire, a state where social conservatism is shunned, but which has a proud libertarian tradition in line with Perry’s message.

Perry has his own obvious vulnerabilities.  Close your eyes and listen to him speak, and you could mix him up with George W. Bush.  Even though they both come from very different backgrounds (Bush, an establishment blue-blood, versus Perry, who grew up poor on the Texas plains) and their political teams in Texas are famously distant, voters may not be ready for another straight-talking Texas governor as president.

That said, the political environment has changed markedly in the last several months.  With Obama’s job approval rating now below 40 percent in Gallup’s latest survey, nominating a candidate based on electability is becoming a non-issue for Republicans.  If the economy fails to grow - and the current economic forecasts are grim - it’s hard to see Perry’s style being a serious impediment to becoming president.  The notion that a three-term governor of the second most-populous state in the country is somehow unelectable simply because of his Texas twang strikes me as fanciful.

If Obama’s in trouble, Perry should be able to hold the states Bush carried in 2004.  He could be stronger in some of the Southern battlegrounds, like North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia.  But he’d probably face a higher hurdle winning “suddenly-competitive Democratic-leaning”, Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, where his style could wear thin and Romney would be a better match for the electorate.

No two elections are alike, but in style and substance, this year’s Republican primary and general election are shaping up to be replays of the 1980 presidential race:  President runs as an outsider looking to clean up Washington, but deals with the harsh reality of an economy out of control; a Republican primary pitting an outspoken conservative governor of a large state, considered unelectable by Democrats and the establishment, against a moderate blue-blood preparing for a candidacy for some time.

Reagan, the famous cowboy, dispatched George H.W. Bush and went on to win 489 electoral votes in 44 states. We’re about to see if another cowboy will repeat the trick.

Here is an interesting comment to a post on July 11, 2011, by Dr. Mark Perry "Intrade odds: Gov. Rick Perry is Now Front Runner", at Carpe Diem

22 Comments:

At 7/22/2011 9:52 PM,   Paul said...

Not a huge Perry fan, but he doesn't carry around Romney's health care baggage, and he can point to a robust job creation record during the same period Obama took a wrecking ball to the rest of the country.

On the other hand, there are a lot of nitwits like Benji out there who will say, with nothing but surface evidence, that he reminds them of Bush.