Obama's speech 9-8-11

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From President Obama's speech.

I'm all for doing what he proposed. But ...

Maybe I'm suffering from Obama fatigue or something, but I don't like these kinds of arguments.

A:
"Pass this jobs bill, and the typical working family will get a fifteen hundred dollar tax cut next year. Fifteen hundred dollars that would have been taken out of your paycheck will go right into your pocket. This expands on the tax cut that Democrats and Republicans already passed for this year. If we allow that tax cut to expire – if we refuse to act – middle-class families will get hit with a tax increase at the worst possible time. We cannot let that happen. I know some of you have sworn oaths to never raise any taxes on anyone for as long as you live. Now is not the time to carve out an exception and raise middle-class taxes, which is why you should pass this bill right away."

I think that this says: pass this bill, it includes a taxcut. If you don't pass this bill, you will be raising taxes. This is so sad.

B:
"How many jobs would it have cost us if past Congresses decided not to support the basic research that led to the Internet and the computer chip? What kind of country would this be if this Chamber had voted down Social Security or Medicare just because it violated some rigid idea about what government could or could not do? How many Americans would have suffered as a result?"

consider: He seems to be saying you guys need to get rid of your principles they are just "some rigid idea about what government could or could not do"? I don't believe Bush 43 ever described the liberal opposition to the Patriot Act is such insulting terms.

C:
"We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. But in the middle of a Civil War, he was also a leader who looked to the future – a Republican president who mobilized government to build the transcontinental railroad; launch the National Academy of Sciences; and set up the first land grant colleges. And leaders of both parties have followed the example he set."

He is quite right here. Lincoln dealt with an existential threat to the country and made many long term innovations in other areas at the same time. But you have to be careful when you drag up the biggies, because that also invites a comparison. I suppose it goes like this: In the middle of a recession caused by a very serious financial crisis Obama proposed a short term jobs program to ease the recession and ignored the long term money problem.

What the country needs is a grand compromise which calls for the necessary sacrifices.

What did Obama ask for?
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