This was not a State of the Union Address. This was a wake up call to we the people. This was the same old sleight of hand that will lead to our demise. All of the humor and charm could not ice this cake.
Big bad banks were taken to task as were the Republicans. As in taxing the rich to give to the poor, big banks will be charged fees to recover funds not repaid and these fees will be given to the smaller banks to use for small business loans.
Just how will the smaller banks be accountable for spending these fees in this way? Will new government staff be needed to monitor all of this? Has the government begun the process of fiscal reform by getting deeper into running banking?
Obama may achieve an outcome he did not envision. In such a fiscal atmosphere, big foreign banks may just weigh anchor and put in at some other port before more punitive regulation appears on the horizon for all banks on US soil. Oh, but Obama was quick to assert that he is not punishing banks. We have to trust his word.
Obama has just discovered that small business is the engine that drives this economy. Like a kid with a new toy, he will give them all kinds of goodies for dessert – tax breaks for new hiring and for raising wages and for investors, no capital gains on investments in small businesses. Now how will all of this be reported and tracked? Of course new government workers will have to be hired to monitor this. Stimulus funds will be expended and we need to maintain more control that we have over them.
Lots of fund shifting and tax breaks but for all of the many tax so many sectors of the economy have achieved during the past year, not much was mentioned about the possibility of new taxes or higher old ones to help replace lost government revenues that have added to the deficit. Obama seems oblivious that for every swell idea he has regarding the source and shifting of funding that additional government involvement means increased staffing which hikes the deficit.
We will give tax breaks to companies that keep jobs in the US while forging new trade agreements with China. Now how will this work? At last China has changed its policy and is allowing manufacture outside of its borders. Recently it was announced that they will be establishing manufacturing in parts of Africa.
Are we a third world country at last? Can we hope that as Japanese manufacturers set up shop here several decades ago that now China will do the same? Is this how we will double our exports within the next 5 years?
There will be government cost cutting and belt-tightening – no doubt to help pay for this new round of bright ideas. A freeze on government spending will begin next year. Obama realizes you just would not want to do this with the economy being so weak and the government being the largest employer in the US. But he was careful to say the Medicare, Social Security and national security would be exempt. So what about jobs lost to contractors and others who supply government. The jobless rate will rise and not fall, taking tax dollars with it.
As I have noted above, this was not a State of the Union speech. This was a wake up call for all who can add and subtract. China is the 1,000 pound gorilla in the room; Radical Islam is knocking at the weakened door. If we don’t pay attention to the proper priorities and not the President’s, we will shortly find ourselves living in a Caliphate, speaking Chinese. Why won’t we be living UNDER the Chinese? They are happy to take precious resources (our food among them) and leave local governance alone as they have in Africa. They won’t bother about sharia law.
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HotAir – SOTU open thread: Fightin’ president totally ready to fight or something
Posted on January 28, 2010