The American people simply do not matter to Barack Obama. He said so himself last night as he attempted his first State of the Union Address, declaring, “[W]hen I ran for president, I promised I wouldn’t just do what was popular — I would do what was necessary.” This was a nice way of saying he had heard the overwhelming opposition to his Big Government agenda — and he has decided to plow ahead anyway.
“I will not walk away” from the government health care takeover, he said, and “neither should the people in this chamber.” This, in spite of devastating resistance to the scheme that would ration care, raise premiums, drive people off of their insurance, cut benefits, and bankrupt the treasury with over $1.5 trillion in costs over ten years once fully implemented.
All told, 58 percent oppose the plan in Scott Rasmussen’s last weekly poll on the subject. His tracking has been way ahead of the curve on opposition to the health care takeover. While apologists were claiming majority support for plans like the “public option,” Rasmussen has polled clear opposition for most of 2009.
Barack Obama doesn’t care. With only an occasional glance at the glaring reality that the American people really are not in favor of his plans, Obama’s State of the Union was mostly a “stay the course” campaign rally, coupled with blind assertions as to the correctness of his position. Not to mention his bull-headed insistence that the Democrats get it done and “not run for the hills.”
For example, he came close to prevaricating (to put it kindly) about losses from the Troubled Asset Relief Program: “[W]e have recovered most of the money we spent on the banks. To recover the rest, I have proposed a fee on the biggest banks.” Only, the biggest banks are the ones who have paid TARP back in full, with interest.
Most of the $120 billion in losses have arisen under loans to AIG (not a bank), GM (not a bank), and Chrysler (not a bank). It was Obama’s own Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner who testified to Congress, “There is a significant likelihood that we will not be repaid for the full value of our investments in AIG, GM and Chrysler.”
But not to worry, Obama says, “I am not interested in punishing banks.” Only, he is. He asserted that “Our most urgent task upon taking office was to shore up the same banks that helped cause this crisis.” By that, he means, take over, regulate, and monopolize. You know, punish.
Despite all of his bald distortions, Barack Obama’s greatest transgression in this speech was more a sin of omission than commission in his historical account of what actually happened. In fact, the only entities Obama is not interested in targeting are those most directly responsible for the mess.
Obama had positively nothing to say about Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Reserve (government-created entities all), whose errant policies of loose lending and easy money coupled together to incentivize borrowing on an unprecedented level, inflate the housing bubble, sell worthless securities worldwide, and bring the economy to brink of ruin. Not one word.
Even as George Bush was attempting to justify the unprecedented bailouts his Administration ushered in, he at least acknowledged the role played by, for example, too-low interest rates. Instead, Obama presented a bizarre, disjointed address that was almost completely disconnected from reality, save for the touch of icy indifference to the express will of the American people not to proceed on this course.
But then, by now, that is what the American people have come to expect from the imperial, impervious president.
