The State of the Union Speech - Something For Everyone

It was the moment we've all been waiting for.

After what can only be described as a tumultuous first year,
President Obama delivered his first State Of The Union
Address, to what I am led to believe was a rapt national
audience.

Unfortunately, I missed the great occasion due to a prior
engagement (evening classes), and had to catch the repeat
on CNN later that evening. But by this time of course, both
the main stream media and the blogosphere were full of

commentary, running along the usual lines.

The Huffington Post, of course, was full of where The
Great One fell short addressing liberal causes du jour,
most especially health care and employment. Not to
be outdone of course, Human Events and the Fox
Network were also hitting the "too much big
government" and "not enough free market"
themes.

And I tend to agree with both sides. Not only
was there not enough emphasis on "traditional"
Democratic solutions, but there was almost no
mention of "free markets" or "free enterprise"
in the entire speech. And I found that somewhat
strange - every recent President, from Carter
through Reagan to both Bushes and Clinton has
paid ritual homage in the State Of The Union
address to the free market and free enterprise
miracle wrought by the American people.

But that's not what we heard from Barack Obama.
Rather, what we heard was what Arianna Huffington
called a "speech written by a focus group".

In other words, a little bit of Something for Everyone.

For those worried about jobs, there will be continuing
aid for those out of work, including assistance with
the COBRA program. Left out, of course, was any mention
of what would really help the unemployed - a national
jobs program coupled with real incentives to employers
to add to payrolls. Instead, there will be some money taken
out of the TARP program and re-directed to small business,
and some modest tax incentives for payroll increases - a
total of $30 billion.

Left out of the speech, of course, was that this is about
one-fifth the amount paid out by Wall Street in bonuses
this year.

For the "National Security" crowd, we will be out of Iraq
this year and we will pursue the Afghan effort until the
Afghans can be "responsible for their own security".
Nothing new there. And for the "Deficit Hawks" there
will be a three-year "budget freeze" on most discretionary
spending, beginning of course next year, "because that's
how budgeting is done".

On that one I'm underwhelmed. Defense, Medicare, Social
Security and Veteran's benefits are exempt, which means
that unless there's an economic miracle, everything that
the Administration will be relying on to "stimulate" the
economy will be frozen.

But, I'm willing to give the President credit for trying.
Austerity is about the only thing we haven't tried to
restart the stalled economy. However, I'm not optimistic.
It sounds to me as if the President is channeling Herbert
Hoover in 1931, or FDR in 1937.

That's the last time austerity was tried in the middle of a
recession or depression - and we all know how that turned
out.

But in the main, the speech was a mainstream,
middle-of-the-road statement. No earthshaking
developments - no great new headlines, no
great new initiatives.

It sounded more like the speech a cool, modern,
technocratic CEO might have delivered to an
analyst's conference call, acknowledging a
decline in earnings but cautiously optimistic
about the upcoming year. And that characterization
admittedly fits in with Barack Obama's style.

But, from the President of The United States, I'm
expecting a little more. I expect great themes and
great initiatives. They weren't there.

Maybe next time. After all, you've got three more years.