President Barak Obama delivers the State of The Union speech

President Barak Obama delivered the State of The Union speech to Congress and the nation on Jan 25,2011.The Obama speech lasted 52 minutes in reporting to the nation on his accomplishments and goals for the remainder of his presidency.

The president after the November 2010 election does not have a majority Democrat controlled Congress to work with as in the past 2 years. The 111^th Congress after the 2010 election is now composed of a Republican majority in the House of Representatives and a Democrat majority in the Senate remains since 2007..

President Barak Obama called for a new day of cooperation and unity in the 112^th congress. The President said ‘’ we will move forward together or not move at all’’ and ‘’ what comes of this moment will be determined not by whether we can sit together tonight but whether we can work together tomorrow’’. Another notable quote was ‘’the future is ours to win’’. Is the president starting the 2012 campaign by putting the Republicans on notice?

The Obama speech of 2011 was similar to his speech 2 years ago in which he pledged to reduce spending, invest in infra structure, education, new energy and jobs all with the help of a Democrat majority controlled Congress .Sounds familiar to 2009 when the President pledged to cut the National Debt in half by the end of his term.

Addressing the Economy: President Barak Obama spoke of new public private investments in alternate energy ‘’green energy’’, electric cars, education, high speed bullet train systems , solar, wind and nuclear energy and the rebuilding of the nations infra structure, all of which will create millions of jobs. A sad statistic nationwide is that 25% of our high school students will drop out of school before they graduate. In some low income schools the drop out rate is 50% or more.

President Obama stated that any new bill coming before him with earmarks will be vetoed. In 2009,the President also promised to veto legislation with earmarks. He didn’t perform then, as hepromised, so time will tell if President Obama will keep his wordthis time. Senator Reid commented ‘’ a lot of pretty talk’’ in regard to the President’s statement on earmarks .

President Obama proposes to raise taxes on oil. natural gas and coal industries. One should note that the oil industry has practically been shut down due to new government regulations and presidential moratoriums on oil and gas drilling.

The rising cost of oil and gasoline is a problem for the economy. For the United States not to use our own natural resources before using foreign suppliers is irresponsible, unconscionable and a travesty. Obama and the Democrats keep telling us ‘’ we must wean ourselves off the need of foreign oil ‘’ really.

The solar panel, wind turbine industries have been highly subsidized with taxpayer money ( $9 billion of stimulus money ) in addition to the production of etynol and the electric car production. President Obama stated that by 2015 there will be 1 million electric cars in the marketplace.

THAT ALL SOUNDS GOOD except for recent increases in the cost of food, poultry, milk , meat, gas prices and other commodities which are of deep concern to the taxpayers.

The President went on to briefly speak of foreign affairs mentioning China, South Korea and Tunisia. President Barak Obama stressed the need for the US to educate our youth , to encourage innovation and to out do the rest of the world in biomedical research and information technology such as the internet.

President Barak Obama commented on his accomplishments of the past 2 years. The majority Democrat controlled Congress passed legislation on ‘’ don’t ask don’t tell’’, the ‘’Salt agreement ‘’with Russia, new regulations in the Banking industry, took control of the Student Loan program, passed an extension of the George W. Bush Tax cuts of 2003 coupled with an extension of unemployment benefit’s ,

The Pay-Go bill, increased National Debt limits 2 times up to the present $14.3 trillion and the Healthcare Reform Bill. Recently the newly elected Republican controlled House of Representatives successfully voted to repeal Obama Healthcare Reform legislation. In the Senate, Senator Reid has stated that he will not put a Healthcare Repeal bill on the floor. The Republican minority vowed to have all Senators vote on repealing Obamacare. To deny any elected officials the right to vote on legislation of any kind is contrary to ones constitutional rights. Apparently some members in Congress have forgotten why they were sent to Washington.

The President was disappointed that in his first 2 years not to get approval of a Cap and Trade bill, the Dream Act and Immigration Reform. President Obama’s political goal’s for the remainder of his term are to increase the workforce, have a 5 year freeze on non discretionary spending ( last year he said 3years ), simplify the tax rate for businesses, consolidate some government agencies, revise some government regulations , reduce the deficit and concentrate on creating jobs

The dream act if passed would have given citizenship to children brought to the US by their illegal parents. The president also said that the government will enforce the immigration laws, really.

Note that since President Obama has been in office, 159 new agencies were created, the National Debt has risen $ 3.1 trillion from 2009, the size of government has increased 20%(the government controls 60% of the economy), has created or saved 400,000 jobs (public sector jobs ) and lost millions of jobs in the private sector, multi trillion deficit spending in 2009,2010 and 2011.The CBO reported that the deficit in 2011 (no budget was approved for 2011) is estimated to be $1.48 trillion. Now the people know why there was no mention of the 2011 budget before the 2010 election.

The future of our nation rest on the leadership of President Barak Obama and the 112th Congress. The president is urging Congress to raise the national debt limits above the $14.3 trillion ceiling so as not to default on loan payments and shutting down the government. The challenge to do the right thing rests with the newly elected 112^th Congress. To raise the debt ceiling will not be the first but the third time in the Obama Administration itwould be raised.

President Obama neglected to comment on findings of the debt Commission’s report. He spoke of reducing the deficits but he never explained as to what would specifically be cut. A past President once said ‘’ bigger government is not the solution but bigger government is the problem’’, our President needs to wake up to reality.

In 2009 President Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress passed a $787 billion Stimulus Bill to stimulate( an investment) the economy and put people back to work. The unemployment rate was 7.8% in 2009. The promises was that unemployment would not go over 8% and that shovel ready jobs would jump start the economy. Today the cost of the Stimulus Bill has gone up to $1 trillion and yet unemployment is 9.7% and some 14.5 million workers remain out of work. The Stimulus money ( taxpayer ) in some cases been has been misappropriated , unaccountable and full of government waste projects.

Stimulus taxpayer money has gone to many States to pay for the public workforce (union teachers ,police ,fireman and pension accounts that were under funded ), increase of government benefits, Medicaid ( healthcare for the poor ), earmarks of select Congressman, huge subsidies to the solar, wind , electric car industry and other alternate fuel industries.

President Obama recently admitted to the New York Times that there were no shovel ready job as he had stated in 2009. Major news media commentators were not impressed with President Obama’s State of the Union Speech The consensus was that it appeared similar to the previous ones in which statements that he made were found to be inaccurate. The President appeared to be moving somewhat to a center position as did past President Bill Clinton. The President needs to act in the manner that he speaks.

OBAMA HAS BROUGHT CHANGE TO WASHINGTON but it’s not the change that he campaigned on and why the voters voted for him, sad to say.

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Jon Ewall
http://jon-ewall.hubpages.com/_ph9ejsxunalx/