Posted by
GFC on Friday, February 06, 2009 10:39:23 AM
Most of the article is good reporting stating simple facts and quoting from the President's speech. Those quotes will be addressed in a bit, but the author did reflect a bit of bias with the following comment.
"Since his inauguration two weeks ago, the president repeatedly has reached across the aisle to Republicans as his economic plan has wound its way through the Democratic-controlled Congress."
The President has not reached across the isle. He has show no willingness to accept GOP ideas. He wants to shove through the Democrat plan and expects Republicans to not only silently assent, but to offer their support of a plan they have not been allowed to help create. The reaching across the isle is purely for show. If he were truely interested in reaching across the isle, he would cut the proposals to which the Republicans have the strongest objections, and would accept some of the ideas which the Republicans offer. He has not said he wants to do this nor pressured the House or Senate leadership to compromise. There has been no bipartisanship by the President yet.
The President's comments are worth examining. Consider these two statements he made.
" 'We are not going to get relief by turning back to the very same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin,' Obama said _ an implicit criticism of the GOP that was in power during that period."
" 'I found this deficit when I showed up,' Obama said, earning a standing ovation. 'I found this national debt doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me when I stepped into the Oval Office.' "
The President complains about a doubled national debt in the same speech in which he encourages Congress to massively increase national debt. Does anything more need to be said? Those guys were bad; they spent more money than they had. Hey let's spend more money than we have even faster than those guys did while at the same time scolding them for doing the same thing though on a smaller scale. Unbelievable.
The other idea in the above quotes which needs to be refuted is the idea that the GOP were solely responsible for the economic policy of the past eight years. For six years the economy grew, then the Democrats gained control of the House and Senate. One year later this recession began. Also, the defection of Jim Jeffords gave the Democrats control of the Senate for most of the first two years of the Bush presidency. This means that the Democrats had control of at least the Senate for half of the Bush presidency. They should shoulder at least some of the blame for the current situation.
The President says he wants to be bipartisan, yet ignores everything the other party wants to do. The President complains about debt incurred the past eight years, yet is pushing as hard as possible for an increase in the debt. The President blames Republicans for the economy, yet Democrats were in control of the legislature when the recession began. His words are hollow. There is no truth in them.