Our Opinion: Obama links solutions to more spending

Thursday, February 14, 2013

For someone who acknowledged government can’t solve every problem, President Obama proposed a spectrum of programs and spending during his State of the Union address Tuesday.

“Americans don’t expect government to solve every problem,” he said in his nationwide address, then outlined a litany of federal programs on manufacturing, infrastructure, housing education, energy and climate change.

Specifically, they include:

• Manufacturing Innovation Institutes, a network to promote and invest in — Washington-speak for spend tax dollars on — American-made production.

• A “Fix It First” program directing $15 billion to repair infrastructure.

• Allocating $15 billion to help communities with foreclosed and vacant properties.

• Federal programs for preschool, high school and higher education.

• Tax credits for renewable energy and competitive grants for states that increase energy efficiency.

Obama failed to mention how his proposed billions of dollars in new spending would mesh with two other pronouncements — his goal to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion in the next decade and his promise Tuesday that none of his new proposals would increase the deficit “by a single dime.”

On the domestic front, Obama also touted increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour, immigration reform and gun control issues.

He gave short shrift to foreign policy, mentioning North Korea, Iran, Syria, Mali and Israel.

A bright spot came early in his address when he announced “our soldiers are coming home.” Obama said 34,000 U.S. troops will return home by this time in 2014, leaving roughly an equal number to train Afghan forces.

Obama also told the nation: “We have cleared away the rubble of crisis, and we can say with renewed confidence that the state of our union is strong.”

We find this pronouncement overly optimistic.

Automatic spending cuts loom once again, on March 1. Although Obama on Tuesday gave lip service to “reasonable compromise,” he displayed little inclination to do so.

In addition, proposing more federal spending in the face of crushing federal deficits is counter-productive.

In his speech, Obama said “we can’t cut our way to prosperity.”

We don’t believe we can spend our way to prosperity.

More like this story

JCLifer 3 months ago

More federal jobs while the private sector continues to bleed.

Money is not a big problem. Like ObamaCare, we can just crank up the printing presses and print more money.

The state of our union is horrible and getting worse every day.

hobo 3 months ago

Since I still cannot figure out how to get our subscription sign in to work with my old forum name I must use this one since it seems to be set up right.

I especially liked the new pre-school initiative Obummer has put forth. Now we understand how he plans on adding the "thousands of new teachers" he mentioned in the campaign debates and he can pay off his feminist handlers at the same time with even more tax payer money to the Liberal/Feminist dominated education system.

Indoctrinate em early and let the pensions flow.

online_editor 3 months ago

You should be able to log into your commenting account the same way you did before, after you log into your subscription account. Once you log into your subscription account, that opens up the website so that you should be able to treat the rest exactly like you did before. (Emphasis on should, of course)

connor 3 months ago

OK tried it. seems to be working now... Maybe :)

Rbreb13 3 months ago

In his speech, Obama said “we can’t cut our way to prosperity.” We don’t believe we can spend our way to prosperity.<

Well put. Spending our way to bankruptcy is more like it. I'm surprised anybody even buys our debt anymore. We'll never be able to pay it back. 40+% of what we pay now goes only to interest payments. If we as individuals were as financially irresponsible as our government we would all be in jail!

connor 3 months ago

I don't think any one is buying the US debt anyway. I believe it was in early 2010 one of the economist bloggers I follow showed that the Fed was purchasing most of the bonds even back then. I know soon after that he also showed where China had completely stopped and Japan stopped not too long after that.

What they are doing is keeping it from trickling down. I figure to the fed they don't care that they are not getting the full whatever billion in interest payment a month so they are actually eating most of the profit and just turning over the debt again and again. What's it to them anyway? Just more numbers on a screen and those numbers may say they should get 800 billion or would if they cashed out but they know if they take it the whole thing will fall so they just gobble up 500 billion and let the rest slide.

Pretty simplistic but I don't see any other way they could be pulling it off.

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