Response to the Response to the State of the Union

"...the state of the Union is strong..."

Since 1790 Presidents have been getting in front of the Congress to deliver their summation on current events since 1790.   Franklin Roosevelt was the first President to use the phrase, "State of the Union".  In recent political history the State of the Union speech (or SOTU if you're into the brevity thing) has been a chance to lay down the gauntlet and bait the opposing party.  But every now and again a President uses the SOTU to rally the Congress on both sides of the aisle.  I think President Obama was shooting for the latter.

During his 2nd SOTU President Obama weathered the high road and maintained the recent and rare civility in the Capital.  In trying to rally the nation he said the word "future" 15 times.  He said "change "10" times.  He mentioned China 4 times.  And he said something about a 3 to 4 hour work day.   His speech was clearly an attempt to inspire the nation and recognize our ability to be stronger than our problems, and collectively united while individually diverse.

With his approval points rising, the SOTU was a good opportunity for the President to remain presidential and ride a positive trend.  And he did just that.  Granted he has confused a lot of people with the dual approach of spending cuts and investments in our country.  But as I told a dear friend, a progressive centrist is going to "contain multitudes".

But we now turn to the rebuttals.

In 1966, Senator Everett Dickson gave the first response to the SOTU given by LBJ starting a rebuttal tradition.  The point at which we decided that the president's rah-rah speech needed a rebuttal might have been the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning.  Of course, given what LBJ was trying to get done in 1966 (Civil Rights reforms, Welfare Reform, South East Asia reform) perhaps a rebuttal was more than necessary.

In 2011, we introduced not one rebuttal from the opposing party, but two.  Representative Paul Ryan (WI) spoke on behalf of the Republicans.  Michele Brachman, also Republican but fan of Tea parties spoke on behalf of the Tea Party.  I guess Joe Lieberman was looking forward to retirement an opted out of a rebuttal from independents. We might very well consider nipping this in the bud, before the State of the Union itself turns into a week long debate exercise.   This could get carried away.  I did see that Sarah Palin tried to turn her response into a game of acronyms, but the mainstream press has pretty much moved on. 

In his Republican response, Paul Ryan emulated the Capital civility. Ryan came out praising the president for his remarks on the Tucson tragedy.    He clarified that all of the economic woes were not created by the present administration.  Ryan's speech was very deferential to the President, even indicating that "the President came into office facing a severe fiscal and economic situation."  For a few moments, it almost looked like Ryan had an Obama-crush.

Ryan scores points for not putting all the economic woes on the doorsteps of the Whitehouse.  America's short memory undermines the credibility of the electorate.  We are like an easily dog, chasing its tail for momentary bliss, while being stung by a swarm of bees and putting the blame on a neighborhood cat.  Life is what's happening when you're burying a bone. 

But then Ryan's sense of linear argument quickly evaporated.  It was as if someone told him, at line 24, you need to ignore cause and effect and just start concluding that 2 + 2 = 17.

Instead of identifying that the severe fiscal and economic situation required drastic spending measures to avoid an all out depression and complete collapse of the economy, Ryan choose to argue that President Obama failed to deliver on his promise to create more jobs. Obama might have saved a house from burning to the ground, but he didn't stop the dog from running away: Hence failure.

Ryan also indicated that the stimulus failed.  But that is inconclusive.  If nothing was done, we'd be criticizing a 'do nothing" President who stood by and failed to save the country.  It is going to get harder and harder for Republicans and Tea Party candidates to argue that the stimulus failed, when the NASDAQ charts above 12,000 points (hitting 11,989.83 at close on Thursday).   The stimulus hasn't failed.  The bailouts haven't failed.  In fact as the bailout money has been paid back American has either come out ahead on those investments or at least broken even.   And if you think hard about what it was like in February 2009, you have to remember that we were desperate and in dire straits as a nation.

Of course Ryan had to address the Health Care Reform.   The Republican Party beats on the Health Care Reform like an heirloom Bohkara rug.  Even when the President concedes that improvements need to be made to the law, like malpractice deterrence and unnecessary IRS forms, the Republican brusque the entreaty aside and stick to the script; "it increases costs, kills jobs, encourages baby-seal bashing, etc.etc".

Health care would have costs risen regardless; with or without this reform.  I think it specious at best to indicate that it is the problem behind job growth.   It might serve as a nice excuse but Corporate America is not hiring because it wants to maximize profits and resort to maxing out the current workforce.  Look at the stock market.  It continues to soar because corporations are profitable and still sitting on trillions of excess capital.  Corporate America will create new jobs when it absolutely has to and when it can no longer double up responsibilities on existing staff, or remain competitive.  Health Care Reform is not the impediment to lowering the national unemployment rate.

Ryan concluded the rebuttal by confusing the financial meltdown remedies with the cause of the economic crisis itself.  Lack of Federal fiscal oversight initiated by Clinton and endorse by Bush led to unregulated markets which created the fiasco.  Restoring federal oversight to appropriate levels is not building big government, but just putting the right controls back in place.  If someone steels your car, it is not bureaucracy to install an expensive alarm system and park in a secured garage.  It's common sense.  And to claim that it impedes entrepreneurialism in the car theft business is...well actually a good thing.

Despite the occasion distortion of fact or convenient gloss over true cause and effect, Ryan did his best to echo the President's message of hope, collaboration and "can-do" success.  It was actually gratifying to see a civil and articulate response.

Luckily for America, we also got to hear the Tea Party's Rebuttal from Michele Brachman. 

Representative Brachman was polite to begin her speech by clarifying that she was not there to compete with the Republican response.  It was almost a "well if you have to qualify..." moment.  Admittedly her accent threw me off, and while her presentational skills were on par with a timeshare salesman, her over rhythm was just a bit off.  I don't know...may that just how it is in Minnesota?  But on content alone, Bachman embarked on an impassioned speech full of factual anomalies.

Bachman proposed that Obama's primary goal upon getting elected was to create jobs and decrease the deficit.  However, in January 2009 the primary focus was to thwart a spiraling debt crisis.  Bachman conveniently forgets that while today's primary goals are job creation and debt reduction, in 2009 we were just looking hoping to avoid wide spread wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Oddly looking just left off camera, Bachman then drew an argument that high unemployment rate was Obama's fault and has remained unchanged for 20 months.    She even had a chart outlining the increase in unemployment over the last 10 years.  She ignores the fact the unemployment rate rose more in the last 7 months of Bush's presidency (3.7 percent from May 2008 to Jan 2009) than Obama's 24 months in the presidency (2.1 %)  And despite her claim that is has remain unchanged in 20 months, it has actually gone done, albeit slowly and not at the rate to get good folks back to work. 

Now we won't get into the effect of the "just say no" Republican majority.  Because we need to look forward not past.  But like Ryan, Bachman confused facts and cause and effect.  She chose to ignore the strides we have made as a country over the last two years which helped us avoids far dire and disastrous results.   

Together Ryan and Bachman choose to ignore the lessons of history which tell us that national spending is the solution to overcome and avoid a depression (just look at the Hoover legacy).   And they choose the temptation of negative rearview analysis over forward looking solutions.  Sadly these arguments will not stand the test of time.  However, they might stand with the equally misinformed and the danger there is that while solutions are gained, no one will recognize them against the haze of half-truths and distortions.

Luckily one cannot consistently argue that something is not working, when key indicators indicate that these solutions are working (notwithstanding unrest in Egypt, which set the markets back today).  Empiricism might be the salve to our national misunderstanding.  It will be interesting to see how opposition forces bend reality.  I am sure soon they will start taking credit for it.  Despite a quantifiable record,   In the meantime we cannot lose sight that these problems took time to create and were legion.  The solutions as well must be large and will take time to succeed.

God bless America and the men of Iwo Jama.