Obama Could Sell Shampoo to a Bald Guy

“He gives good speech. Now it’s time to deliver.”

~ Brad Lang

The Washington Post reported that around 38 million people watched President Obama’s campaign speech...er, I mean State of the Union speech Tuesday night (and that’s not counting PBS and C-SPAN viewers). I was one of ‘em. As I posted in Facebook, it was that one time of year when I was completely pro-Obama, proud that he was my president, and ready to work for him. I also said, “We’ll see how long this will last.”

There was a lot to like about this speech. I liked how the POTUS has put new rules in place to hold Wall Street accountable and has promised more bank regulation and more investigations of abusive lending practices that have hurt homeowners. I liked how he mentioned Detroit or Michigan three times, and mentioned how the auto industry is growing and investing and has added nearly 160,000 jobs since he took office.

He referenced our crumbling infrastructure and said we need to bring back manufacturing and revise the tax code and give community colleges more resources and quit bashing teachers and teaching to the test. He said that every state should require all students to stay in school until they graduate or hit 18, we should extend the college tuition tax credit and expand work-study programs, and colleges and universities need to do a better job of keeping costs down.

I thought his suggestion that the Senate give all judicial and public service nominations a simple up-or-down vote within 90 days was good. He demanded more jobs for veterans and urged lawmakers to pass the payroll tax cut and said he was setting up a new office to investigate unfair trade practices in countries like China. (Did you know, by the way, that China spent nine percent of its GDP on infrastructure last year to our 2.5 percent?) What’s not to like about any of this?

It made me nervous, however, when he talked about “outdated, unnecessary or costly regulations” – he said, “I’ve ordered every federal agency to eliminate rules that don’t make sense” – and when he started up with the obligatory anti-Iran saber-rattling:

“Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.”

Nor was I elated when he promoted more domestic drilling for oil and fracking for natural gas:

“Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I'm directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources...We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years, and my Administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy.”

Still, this speech – like most of his speeches – contained language that made me remember why I voted for the guy in November of 2008 and wore an “Obama” t-shirt for months afterward:

“I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That's long enough. It's time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs.”

“Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.”

“Right now, we’re poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else – like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we’re serious about paying down our debt, we can’t do both.”

My favorite lines were when he talked about “lowering the temperature” in Washington:

“We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction; that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common sense ideas.”

and when he pretended to be a fighter:

“I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.”

The speech’s central theme (according to Bob Schieffer, I think it was) was “economic fairness.” I don’t think this was a bad theme for the POTUS and his speechwriters to choose, given that:

• Since 1985, the federal tax rate for the 400 wealthiest Americans dropped from 29 percent to 18 percent.

• The top 1 percent takes home 24 percent of the nation’s income, up from about 9 percent in 1976.

• In the last three years, 30 major corporations spent more on lobbying than they paid in taxes.

• The top 1 percent owns 40 percent of our country’s wealth while the bottom 80 percent owns only 7 percent.

• 50 percent of U.S. workers make less than $26,364 per year.

Sixteen seconds after the president’s obligatory, “God bless you and god bless the United States of America” conclusion, one of ABC’s talking heads started her analysis by babbling about how the president was “conciliatory” and “not aggressive” and finished it by insisting that Obama “picked a fight with the Republicans.” I guess they don’t teach you not to contradict yourself in commentator school.

It was a good speech. But Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I’ve been fooled by our charming, silver-tongued president before so this time I stifled the urge to stand up and applaud after he was done. I’m waiting and seeing.


For the text of the speech, click here.


Sources: Washington Post, Huffington Post, Thinkprogress.org, Earthjustice.org.