Obama outlines activist second term in State of the Union -- The Washington Times

[bsteadman]

Obama outlines activist second term in State of the Union

President insists spending plan won’t add ‘a single dime’ to the deficit

The Washington Times
Dave Boyer
2/12/2013

Excerpt:

Laying out an activist, big-spending second-term agenda, President Obama called on Congress in Tuesday night’s State of the Union address to spend more on job-creation proposals for the middle class and claimed it would not add to the nation’s huge budget deficits.

After four years of weak economic recovery, Mr. Obama issued a plea for lawmakers to approve more spending on infrastructure, renewable-energy projects and education. He also called for an increase of the federal minimum wage, to $9 per hour up from $7.25, saying “in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty.”

“A growing economy that creates good, middle-class jobs — that must be the North Star that guides our efforts,” Mr. Obama said in his fourth State of the Union address. “It is our generation’s task, then, to reignite the true engine of America’s economic growth — a rising, thriving middle class.”

In a one-hour address that was mainly aimed at his Democratic base, Mr. Obama called for action on climate change, comprehensive immigration reform, voting rights and gun control. But the main thrust of his speech was devoted to proposals to boost the economy through more government spending. - (bold and underline emphasis added)

The president proposed tens of billions of dollars in new spending, including a $50 billion program to fix aging bridges nationwide, $15 billion to rebuild communities hard-hit by the housing crisis and a sweeping expansion of early-childhood education services.

He argued that all his proposals will be paid for, and they won’t add to the annual deficit that has been running at more than $1 trillion per year for his entire term of office.
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View the complete article, including video, at:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...udget-deficit/

[bsteadman]

Rand Paul gives tea-party response to Obama

Senator delivers alternate rebuttal to president

WND
2/12/2013

Excerpt:

While Florida’s Sen. Marco Rubio gave the official Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union speech, Sen. Rand Paul gave an alternate rebuttal on behalf of the tea party. Here are the Kentucky senator’s remarks as both video and text.

I speak to you tonight from Washington, D.C. The state of our economy is tenuous but our people remain the greatest example of freedom and prosperity the world has ever known.

People say America is exceptional. I agree, but it’s not the complexion of our skin or the twists in our DNA that make us unique. America is exceptional because we were founded upon the notion that everyone should be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

For the first time in history, men and women were guaranteed a chance to succeed based NOT on who your parents were but on your own initiative and desire to work.

We are in danger, though, of forgetting what made us great. The President seems to think the country can continue to borrow $50,000 per second. The President believes that we should just squeeze more money out of those who are working.

The path we are on is not sustainable, but few in Congress or in this Administration seem to recognize that their actions are endangering the prosperity of this great nation.

Ronald Reagan said, government is not the answer to the problem, government is the problem.

Tonight, the President told the nation he disagrees. President Obama believes government is the solution: More government, more taxes, more debt.

What the President fails to grasp is that the American system that rewards hard work is what made America so prosperous.

What America needs is not Robin Hood but Adam Smith. In the year we won our independence, Adam Smith described what creates the Wealth of Nations.

He described a limited government that largely did not interfere with individuals and their pursuit of happiness.

All that we are, all that we wish to be is now threatened by the notion that you can have something for nothing, that you can have your cake and eat it too, that you can spend a trillion dollars every year that you don’t have.
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View the complete post, including video, at:

http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/rand-paul...onse-to-obama/

[bsteadman]

Obama’s Most Dishonest State of the Union Address

FrontPage Magazine
Daniel Greenfield
2/13/2013

Excerpt:

In 1986, at the closing session of the Communist Party shindig in the Karl Marx Theater in Havana, Castro had declared, “Let no one think that what I have here is a lengthy speech; it is the party’s program.” He then went on to speak for 7 hours and 10 minutes.

Obama’s ridiculous 6600-word marathon is also not a lengthy speech; it is the party’s program. The professional flatterers and fawners in the media have long since given up describing the teleprompter-in-chief as a talented speaker. These days Obama gives speeches that not only sound like they were read from a teleprompter, but also written by a teleprompter.

The obscene performance began with a celebration of an economic recovery that exists only in Washington, D.C., which has grown fat on the money that its corrupt political interests have stolen from the rest of the country, and ended by comparing a woman waiting in line to vote for him with a police officer who risked his life to stop a mad gunman.

And in between these two cynical and ugly bookends was a dog’s dinner of out of control spending, class warfare and more bad ideas than even Castro could have come up with in seven hours.

As out of touch with the rest of the country as if he were speaking at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana, Obama claimed that spending was under control, the national debt was no longer a problem, the war in Afghanistan had been won, the economic recovery was here, unemployment was fading and Al Qaeda was a shadow of its former self.

Obama described the “sequester” that he had come up with as “a really bad idea” and blamed it on Congress. He took credit for the oil production that he had fought every step of the way and blamed Hurricane Sandy on global warming; a claim that even few global warming researchers are willing to make.

There were more calls to fix all those broken bridges, which he had somehow been unable to fix for four years, despite running trillion dollar deficits. And finally a proposal to really help the economy take off by legalizing 11 million illegal aliens and thereby doubling the unemployment rate in a single year.

Any Diogenes in the audience taking it upon himself to shout “liar” at every lie would have worn out his vocal chords in a matter of minutes.

Like most bad speakers, Obama has been reduced to relying on props. And since he isn’t allowed to bring a slideshow, the props are his designated victims.

“Gabby Giffords deserves a vote,” Obama insisted toward the end of his Castroesque word jumble of Soak-the-Rich, Ban-the-Guns and Help-the-Poor-by-Taking-Away-their-Jobs. “The families of Newtown deserve a vote.”

They have a vote, of course, but what he really meant is that they should have not only a vote, but a veto on account of their moral supremacy as official victims. Before Havana-on-the-Potomac got started, one of the designated victims from three years ago came forward to say that Obama had betrayed her. But that’s also part of the program. The designated victim of today is Obama’s victim of tomorrow.

The people that Obama promises to help today will be put out of work by him tomorrow.

During the word marathon, victims come in handy as human touches in the middle of Obama’s latest expensive technocratic gimmick, but as soon as Obama gets what he wants, they’re yesterday’s news. And there are always gimmicks; whether it’s trading hubs with 3D printers or an Energy Security Trust.

With the 2013 State of the Union address, Obama finally discovered his inner Castro. Anyone who took part in a drinking game based around class warfare would have been under the table by the 2000th word as Obama dressed up all of his proposals with scarecrows made out of the rich.

Obama announced that he was in favor of Medicare cuts, further cuts than those already made by ObamaCare, but immediately tried to hide them by assuring his audience that the “wealthiest seniors” would have to pay more. Whenever any unpopular proposal was mentioned, the class warfare came out as a cheap distraction. And when the strawman in a top hat and monocle wouldn’t do, the leader of the least transparent administration brought out the euphemisms.
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View the complete article at:

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenf...union-address/

[bsteadman]

Rubio: More government breeds more problems

CBS News
Stephanie Condon
2/12/2013

Excerpt:

Responding to President Obama's State of the Union address on behalf of the Republican Party, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tonight made the case that the president's calls for government investments are misguided and potentially destructive.

While agreeing with the president on some issues and taking an optimistic tone for the future, Rubio sought to offer a conservative alternative to the president's agenda, one which takes decision-making out of Washington.

Opportunity, Rubio said, "it isn't bestowed on us from Washington. It comes from a vibrant free economy where people can risk their own money to open a business."

In his address before a joint session of Congress, Mr. Obama told lawmakers, "We need to build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class for all who are willing to climb them." The president laid out a series of actions Washington can take to revive the economy, including investments in the private sector.

Rubio, however, charged tonight that Mr. Obama considers a free enterprise economy as "the cause of our problems."

"His solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more and spend more," Rubio said of the president. "And the idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers - that's an old idea that's failed every time it's been tried. More government isn't going to help you get ahead. It's going to hold you back. More government isn't going to create more opportunities. It's going to limit them."
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View the complete post, including video, at:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-...more-problems/