State of the Union - The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

I watched the Presidential State of the Union speech last night on CNN and therefore was privy to all 3 of the speeches made. We didn't hear a rebuttal from Independents or any other PAC group but somehow the Tea Party was allowed to speak as if they were a third house on the Hill. Whatever. Here is my opinion on what I heard.

The Good:
I love hearing President Obama speak. Political party aside, it is still refreshing to hear someone speak to the American people as adults and not as children. I thought the President did a very good job of being a mediator in this very divided country. The President also did a good job of pointing out his vision of the country, how we relate to the rest of the world, how to improve in various areas and how to deal with deficits and job creation. I felt he was very specific in his ideas and I applaud his intention to post more statistics and facts in the Internet were everyone can view them. This is the transparency he promised in his campaign. I also feel the President is correct in focusing on education and innovation to get our economy working as it should. The President reported on accomplishments that have been made so far without gloating or sounding like a sales person. He said - once again - that he welcomes suggestions on improvements to health care reform while standing firm that the reform is needed. I felt he did a very good job of addressing the Nation.

The Bad:
The Republican rebuttal was pretty much what I expected. Less taxes, less government oversight of business activity, and various other pro-business yet anti-consumer and anti-worker rhetoric. These are the exact policies that plunged our nation into one of the worst recessions of my lifetime. But I did take note of one particular part that was new. Apparently the GOP is learning (possibly from my blog and many others) that their party is known as the party with no compassion for those less fortunate. Here is what was said:

"We believe government's role is both vital and limited – to defend the nation from attack and provide for the common defense: to secure our borders, to protect innocent life, to uphold our laws and Constitutional rights, to ensure domestic tranquility and equal opportunity and to help provide a safety net for those who cannot provide for themselves."

That last part about the safety net for those who cannot provide for themselves is new -I'd like them to explain that in a bit more detail. They are against health care reform, against unemployment insurance, against welfare, against any kind of Government funded "safety net" so what does that mean? I'd also like them to explain how they can accomplish that mission statement without money (taxes).

The Ugly:
The Tea Party response was also what I expected. Their view of the economy and America is overly (extremely) simplistic and one dimensional. They seem to have absolutely no concept of cause and effect. The graphics used to show the increased unemployment since 2009 provided no detail on what really caused those figures. It was simply all blamed on President Obama. In reality the previous administration drove the car off the cliff and the free-fall had only started when President Obama took office. To suggest that the sudden increase in unemployment was due to President Obama's policies, when in fact those policies hadn't even been implemented yet is simply not true - ask an economist.

The thing that bothers me most about the Tea Party is that they imply that Democrats and even "normal" Republicans don't want an economy that lives within it's means. For goodness sake - everyone wants that! If you look at the economy in the Tea Party one dimensional way - it's easy to say"cut this" or "end that" without knowing the consequences of such an action. The economy of the United States is a very complicated and integrated beast - and it is intertwined with the rest of the world economies. If you make a drastic change - it WILL have drastic consequences. Although Democrats and Republicans have very different ideas on how to accomplish the task - at least they try to understand the complexity of the economy. The Tea Party doesn't understand the concept at all.

The "ugly" part of the Tea Party is how they mislead America. It is very, very dangerous to use simplistic arguments and graphics that exclude facts to make your point. It is irresponsible to our country to say "This is why" when you don't know why. There are a lot of people in this country who are not college educated or economists. They will naturally believe the simplistic data presented by the Tea Party that is void of facts - as a fact. It's easy to get votes by misleading the public with half truths, but to omit facts is the same as lying. If the Tea Party is allowed to continue with this unfounded rhetoric, we will see more of them easily elected to public office and once there, they will find they are completely wrong about how our Government works.

Then what.