07 February 2014

My Response to the State of the Union Address

By: Benedictine College Republicans' Vice-Chairman, David St.Hilaire

Last Tuesday night I spent an hour and a half watching President Barack Obama speak to the Cabinet, Congress, the Supreme Court, and to the nation about the state of our country.  Now, it is no secret I am no big fan of President Obama, and I didn't have very high expectations for this address.  His past SOTU addresses have been full of largely empty words and sometimes just plain lies.  Rarely has he actually laid out any definitive plan of action when it comes to solving America's problems. But I was honestly hoping that he would at least state some solid plans for the future (even if I didn't agree with them), if only to put on a good face for the rest of the world.  Unfortunately, he didn't do that.  So, without further ado, here are some of my thoughts on a few things he did say...
The Job Market and Income Equality
President Obama spent a good part of his speech on jobs and wages.  One of the first things he said was that America has "the lowest unemployment rate in over five years; a rebounding housing market, [and] a manufacturing sector that's adding jobs for the first time since the 1990s [...]"  What he left out was that the unemployment rate is still at 6.7%...only .6% lower than it was in 2008.  And if you add discouraged workers to that number, it goes up to 13.1%.  I realize that the President was trying to take an optimistic look at things, but I don't think it is completely realistic to claim that things are so much better.
Another thing the President stressed was his concern over income inequality in America.  One of his strongest, most definitive points was that he wants minimum wage to be raised to $10 an hour.  In fact, he said he will sign an executive order that will increase the minimum wage of all federal employees to $10.10/hr.  Now, while this sounds like a praiseworthy plan, I think he has overlooked several things.  First of all, what about small businesses that don't have any money to spare?  There are many small businesses that would be either forced out of business or have to lay off workers if they were required to pay all their employees $10/hr.  Secondly, an increase in minimum wage would cause an increase in the cost of goods and services.  Big companies, such as Walmart, are definitely not going to absorb the cost themselves.  Instead, they will raise their prices. Obama used Costco as an example of a store that raised their wages without increasing prices.  However, if all companies were required to raise their wages, they couldn’t all be counted on keeping prices the same.  I believe that this inflation of prices would somewhat cancel out the higher wages.
Obama also touched on the wage gap between men and women.  He claimed that women only make 77 cents on the dollar, compared to men.  While this is technically true, it fails to look at all the facts.  Women, as a whole, make 77 cents for every dollar men make, but if you factor in that women work different jobs than men, different hours than men, and different professions than men, the real figure would be about 91 cents on the dollar.[1]  So, while women do make slightly less than men, it is not as big of a deal as Obama is making out of it.
Healthcare
Where to begin? The President spent about 600 words of his 6,900 word speech on healthcare, in specific, the Affordable Care Act.  He mostly used these words to promote the healthcare law, without really giving too many details about it.  He announced that 12 million Americans have signed up for healthcare (both private and Medicaid).  Of course, nothing was said about how six million people have lost their previous plans and doctors, or about the massive failure of the Obamacare website, but that was to be expected.  He also scolded the Republicans for passing 40 bills to overturn the law.  “Let’s not have another 40-something votes to repeal a law that’s already helping millions of Americans […] the first 40 were plenty.”  This was one of the things I agreed with him on.  As much as I oppose the healthcare law, I don’t think there was any point in the House passing that many bills when they knew they would never pass the Senate.  It just made the Republicans seem whiny and desperate.  It also must have been an enormous waste of time and money.
Overall, I was surprised that Obama didn’t spend more time touting his healthcare law.  I think it is fair to say that the Affordable Care Act is his biggest accomplishment as president, so I was expecting it to take up a good portion of his speech.  I suppose he thought there were other, more pressing issues to discuss, now that the law is nearly in full effect.
The Environment, “Climate Change”, and Energy
            A large chunk of the address focused on America’s energy situation.  The president celebrated the fact that we are becoming more and more energy independent.  He promoted the use of natural gas and solar power.  Then, he dropped a bombshell.  He said, “The debate is settled.  Climate change is a fact.”  Really, Mr. President? On what do you base that assertion?  I think that statement is a little hard to prove. While the climate is indeed changing, it isn’t exactly a scientific fact that humans are causing it.
“I Have a Pen and a Phone”
            Several weeks ago Mr. Obama proclaimed that he “has a pen and a phone,” meaning that he wasn’t going to sit around and wait for legislation to be passed in order to do the things he wanted done.  On Tuesday he reiterated that message when he said, “I’m eager to work with all of you, but America does not stand still – and neither will I.  So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do.”  He said this right in front of both Houses of Congress…yep, all 535 of them.  I was sitting there thinking, “Something is not right with this picture.”  Obama had just told them that he didn’t need them and that he was going to bypass them whenever he felt like it and as much as possible…and they stood up and applauded.  Say, what?  The fact that our president stood in front of the country and proclaimed that he was going to disregard the Constitution and the checks and balances in order to promote his own agenda is frightening, to say the least; especially when Congress not only doesn’t do anything to stop it, but actually applauds him when he announces it.  The Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves right about now.  This was the exact situation they were trying to prevent when they came up with the three branches of government.
Conclusion
            In conclusion, Obama’s 5th State of the Union Address fell tremendously short.  He made a large number of empty, vague promises for the future, and failed to say anything really substantial.  He had a lot of good rhetoric, but very few specifics.  As we have come to expect with the president, it was a very good speech when it comes to its delivery.  No one can deny the fact that he knows how to give a good speech (at least when he has a teleprompter, anyway).  However, it seemed to me that Obama was just repeating the same things he has been saying for the past five years.  But where are the results?  His speech also gave me cause for alarm, most notably, in that he seems hell bent on overstepping his Constitutional powers in every way possible.  It also seemed like he was saying a lot of things that were not in line with things he has said in the past.  But, that is a topic for another day.  So, I will leave you with that.
            God bless you all, and God bless the United States of America!

(Originally posted on David's blog, Patriot on the Plains)



[1] http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-s-gender-pay-gap-is-myth-it-s-just-not-true-experts-say

03 February 2014

Triumph of the Revolution


Progressive ideologies seem to be quite varied, but a common heritage can be established in the motto of the French revolutionaries, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité."  Each of the various progressive movements can be classified according to the way they prioritize these ideals.  Libertines, naturally enough, value liberty the most, socialists and their fellow travelers emphasize equality, while nationalists prefer fraternity, in civic or ethnic terms.  These ideologies are all truly revolutionary ideologies, and the regimes in which they are employed are revolutionary regimes.

This is not to say that anyone with any affinity for the three ideals are revolutionaries.  Many love liberty not merely as an abstraction to be forced upon atomistic individuals, but rather recognize its value to a happy and productive people.  Those who would advance ordered liberty are wary of license and do not seek to overturn those limitations placed on man by nature and propriety.  All right thinking people acknowledge some level of equality, and honor the dignity of all men made in the image and likeness of God.  However, a proper respect for the equality of man must be tempered by an appreciation for the natural inequality of man in ability, morals, and vocation.  Feelings of fraternal affections between people of a similar culture and heritage are natural and good, and are in fact necessarily opposed to revolutionary fraternity.  This latter conception of brotherhood reduces all men to citizens under a particular regime or members of a certain race, while sweeping away local traditions and those ties between diverse communities rooted in shared faith or sentiments.

The West today faces a crisis.  Some form of revolutionary, progressive regime rules Westerners across the world, not only in our halls of power but in our schools, our churches, and in our homes.  The Jacobins have conquered the world and we failed to notice, perhaps because the conspicuous guillotine has been replaced by the hidden slaughter of the unborn.  Opposition to the revolution is led most often not by principled defenders of God, family, and tradition, but rather by revolutionary alternatives to the party in power.  I do not mean to say that our leaders are necessarily a bunch of bloodthirsty scoundrels, but rather that they usually adhere at least somewhat to a revolutionary ideology, and as a a result make decisions based on false ideas about human nature.


What is to be done?  Frenchman could do their best to subvert the revolution while waiting for the British to appear, but His Majesty's Army is not coming to save us.  When all the world groans under the unnatural tyranny of revolution, to whom shall we look for salvation?  Edmund Burke, the great British statesman and critic of the French Revolution, recommends a gradual, incremental approach to social and governmental reform, but that formula was advanced in the context of a stable and sane order.  The same approach may still work in our revolutionary times, building upon the vestiges of a natural order that still remain below the politically correct surface of modern life.  People of all persuasions have a natural love for their families, their homes, and their communities.  It is our task to cultivate those natural affections and from them draw a commitment to a strong social order befitting a happy and virtuous people.  This is not the work of rhetoricians or legislators but of normal people living out their daily lives with hope, faith, and charity, in defiance of an anti-social society.  It will be a long and difficult journey up the cliff from which we have fallen, but we may yet return to solid ground.


Originally Posted on Button's Blog