The problems with a defensive Obama team
President Obama’s Associate Press speech only clearly indicated one thing…He’s being defensive about his policies. While a defensive stance is a choice, it leaves the outlining of the dialogue to the other side and ends up in the abysmal performance the President gave yesterday at the Associated Press Luncheon on 4/3/12.
As a Democrat, I know it’s likely that President Obama will win the election and I’m glad of it but I hate to see him continue the same nonsense that lost the Democratic control of the House. What nonsense? Take a look at the speech. This is an exact transcription of what was said:
“The year after next, nearly 10 million college students would see their financial aid cut by an average of more than $1,000 each. There would be 1,600 fewer medical grants, research grants for things like Alzheimer’s and cancer and AIDS. There would be 4,000 fewer scientific research grants, eliminating support for 48,000 researchers, students, and teachers. Investments in clean energy technologies that are helping us reduce our dependence on foreign oil would be cut by nearly a fifth.
If this budget becomes law and the cuts were applied evenly, starting in 2014, over 200,000 children would lose their chance to get an early education in the Head Start program. Two million mothers and young children would be cut from a program that gives them access to healthy food.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/03/remarks-president-associated-press-luncheon
In an effort to show why everything he wants is important the President started off with the weakest argument that indicates he’s out of touch or hopelessly tied in with other interests. What Democrat could honestly argue that the President is persuasive when he put the importance of student loans and medical grants ahead of food stamps for mothers?
Who could support his assertion of money for medical research when the American people are worried we won’t be able to afford medical care so that only the wealthiest would benefit from that research?
And one of the central issues to Democrats, affordable healthcare in whatever form including Medicare and Medicaid doesn’t make it into the reality list until after his justification of investment in clean energy technology.
President Obama, please tell us you can recognize a lousy speech when you see it!
Finally, the overriding issue that is appealing to Republicans, the cutting of the tax rate of the rich of cutting taxes to the rich is so muddled by all the other nonsense in the speech that the President failed to directly address the fantasy of the Republican proposal to concretely drop the top individual tax rate from 35 to 25 percent with NO DATE to balance the losses in taxes from lowering taxes for the rich and NO DATE for when specific tax loopholes will be closed to expand the number of people paying taxes or even WHAT THOSE LOOPHOLES are. http://paulryan.house.gov/UploadedFiles/PathToProsperityFY2012.pdf go to page 50 of the plan.
By being defensive President Obama missed this opportunity to ask specifically when the tax loopholes be closed, will they be closed before tax rates are reduced for the rich, how much money will be gained by closing the loopholes and will the expanded number of rich taxpayers achieved by closing those loopholes amount to enough revenue to cover the losses from reduced tax rates?
Also, how long until the same revenue is provided to the government by exchanging tax rate for more rich payers of class (allegedly going to come from closing tax loopholes)? Will these loopholes effect only the rich or anyone having capital gains, for example, even the employee who buys a few shares in his company’s stock plan so that really the increased revenue will not come from more rich people paying more in taxes but everyone paying more in taxes? The list goes on. But Obama left a gaping hole regarding the tax breaks and the sneakiness of the tax-break proposal and instead argued on behalf of clean energy technology.
Yes the President is likely going to win reelection but he seems to have drifted far away from being in touch with the American people.
