In his first official State of the Union address, our president treated us to an oratorical smorgasbord, rife with ethos and filled with heart-rending stories of children upset by the economy, small business owners on the rise and moving towards a new hope.

Our president has long made his mark by speaking of hope and nonpartisanship; this speech was no different. However, the policies he has advanced show his mark to be quite the opposite: an unfair representation of the will of the American people, who have clearly shown opposition to his agenda through in polls and at the polls. Perhaps his lack of response to a general change in the American public may be some of that “stubborn resilience” that he attributed to all Americans showing through. He speaks about sweeping economic recovery as if we are almost out of the tunnel, as if all that is left to us is to step out. Factual evidence suggests otherwise. When a government spends billions of money it does not have to “create” 2 million jobs (this term being White House doublespeak for jobs salvaged or saved via the Recovery Act), that is not a sign of recovery. It is a sign of a government gone out of control.

Despite this, the president feels no need to be bound by checks and balances or the petty restrictions of the Constitution.
When the Senate blocks a bill, he passes an executive order to override it (although the Constitution dictates that only the Congress may create and legislate law). For a man whose job is to enforce the law that Congress passes with the consent of the American people, he manages to use his charm and intellect to make people forget that he is flagrantly stomping on the principles that make this country great.

The president says he hates the bank bailouts, but his actions dictate otherwise. He says he has gotten the stimulus money back, but reason indicates otherwise. He says government must create conditions for business to grow, but sound economics say otherwise. He says he prevented a great depression, but an ever-mounting deficit and a still-rising unemployment rate show otherwise. He says all men must be treated decently, but his treatment of doctors, wealthy Americans and Islamic countries tell otherwise.
All in all, his every statement is laden with contradictions. While he tells not direct lies as some Republicans would allege, Obama’s rhetoric simply puts a pretty face on an ugly situation that will only get worse should this cycle of government expansion continue.

It is unfair to criticize one man for the failures of a country. However, it is imminently fair to criticize the president for not being what he makes himself out to be. This president has grossly overstepped the duties outlined for him in the Constitution; if he chooses to make himself a legislator rather than a leader, then we must treat him as such.
There is no easy way out, but blindly going in the wrong direction gets us nowhere. Spending money we do not have to get out of an economic collapse caused by big government expansion is like giving heroin to an addict to make his withdrawal symptoms better. It helps in the short term, but in the long run the problem worsens until it is incurable. Deficit spending and regulation have failed us utterly. To think that any group of human beings can predict the subtle oscillations of the market is lunacy.

There is, however, a fix for these massive deficits. The solution is to move towards an Austrian-school, free-market system of laissez-faire economics and limited government (à la Ludwig Von Mises). That is the only way to stop the endless boom/bust cycle. Those ideas and the ideas of our Founding Fathers hold the keys to lifting America out of this crisis and returning us to a position of prominence. It is only then that we can rise from the ashes and be the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Man is not free unless government is limited…. As government expands, liberty contracts. -Ronald Reagan

 

–Austin Parker

In his first official State of the Union address, our president treated us to an oratorical smorgasbord, rife with ethos and filled with heart-rending stories of children upset by the economy, small business owners on the rise and moving towards a new hope. Our president has long made his mark by speaking of hope and nonpartisanship; this speech was no different. However, the policies he has advanced show his mark to be quite the opposite: an unfair representation of the will of the American people, who have clearly shown opposition to his agenda through in polls and at the polls. Perhaps his lack of response to a general change in the American public may be some of that “stubborn resilience” that he attributed to all Americans showing through. He speaks about sweeping economic recovery as if we are almost out of the tunnel, as if all that is left to us is to step out. Factual evidence suggests otherwise. When a government spends billions of money it does not have to “create” 2 million jobs (this term being White House doublespeak for jobs salvaged or saved via the Recovery Act), that is not a sign of recovery. It is a sign of a government gone out of control. Despite this, the president feels no need to be bound by checks and balances or the petty restrictions of the Constitution. When the Senate blocks a bill, he passes an executive order to override it (although the Constitution dictates that only the Congress may create and legislate law). For a man whose job is to enforce the law that Congress passes with the consent of the American people, he manages to use his charm and intellect to make people forget that he is flagrantly stomping on the principles that make this country great. The president says he hates the bank bailouts, but his actions dictate otherwise. He says he has gotten the stimulus money back, but reason indicates otherwise. He says government must create conditions for business to grow, but sound economics say otherwise. He says he prevented a great depression, but an ever mounting deficit and a still-rising unemployment rate show otherwise. He says all men must be treated decently, but his treatment of doctors, wealthy Americans and Islamic countries tell otherwise. All in all, his every statement is laden with contradictions. While he tells not direct lies as some Republicans would allege, Obama’s rhetoric simply puts a pretty face on an ugly situation that will only get worse should this cycle of government expansion continue.

It is unfair to criticize one man for the failures of a country.