The Obama Speech

Last night President Obama gave his first State of the Union-like address to Congress. It was a change though for the new president. Just two weeks ago he was pouncing on the message of fear and depress if Congress does not pass the stimulus. But during last night he went back to the message of hope and a better tomorrow, the ideas of his campaign. But let's face it, Obama's first month in office has been a disaster. The only reason his approval rating is 60% is because the county is still on the high of his campaign. Yet, if this was any other president, then his approval rating would be 40%. Moving on to his speech, it was nice and uplifting. In the NBC News telecast, they counted the number of standing applauses. 34 bipartisan standings. Wow, but he was only able to get that by saying a great deal of American thoughts and bland ideas that everyone can agree. "American will emerge stronger that before". Of course. Everyone in that chamber agrees, but it says nothing about his plans for the future. It is bland, but true. The non specifics that politicians like to say to keep their popularity up. There was little substance in his speech and specifics. It was nice, but it was a campaign speech. Obama needs to get out of campaign mode and not take popularity so seriously. We needs specifics! The one thing that really seems to confuse me, is the idea that he can cut the deficit by half. What! How can he do that? He will be spending trillions of dollars in the next few years on the economy. So what if you have already found $2 trillion of things you can cut. That won't add up to the amount of money spent on the economy and the defense. Obama then says, 'raise taxes on wealthy'. I say no. Let's give a tax cut to all. Those top 2% are in charge of the American businesses. They need their money. Instead of giving their companies bailouts, let them use their money for their company, not tax dollars. Now last night there were a few moments to laugh. "Nobody messes with Joe," was a real laugh. Joe is a tough guy and he has a wild mouth, but is a great guy for watching regulations. The other moment was when Obama said something along the lines of 'we don't want our kids to be paying off this debt', and all the Republicans stood up and cheered. Then Obama said 'but with the debt we inherited', and all the Democrats stood up and cheered. But now Mr. President I thought we don't look to the past. Also this the debt you will be tripling, not even. So all in all it was very good, but bland and lacking specifics. Next time will be better, and the same goes for Bobby Jindal.

The Student Voice

This post will be of a quite different topic than I usually speak of. I am a high school student and in today's post I will discuss a matter that has brought near chaos to our school and community. At my high school there is a student newspaper, The Statesman, and they recently published a story in the paper about "hooking up". This caused a great uproar from the more conservative and traditional members of our community. I am traditional and conservative, but if this is what students do, fine, it is a student newspaper. Now a once stolid school board and administration has taken matters into their owns hands regarding a student newspaper. The paper is now under censorship and the newspaper adviser's job may possibly be lost. Under a Supreme Court decision in 1988, Hazlewood, there are very few things we in the student press can do. Schools can censor, but just because they can doesn't make it right. The students like the paper. All 3,400 copies of the paper are gone and many believe the student snatched them all up. So why would a school board want to censor something students enjoy reading. School boards make a big deal about low reading levels and know they say students can only read certain things. We want to encourage reading in any way. Besides there was nothing obscene in the issue or in past issues. The student voice is very important and censoring that is not right in today's society. I hope you agree with me and the near 600 and growing group on Facebook, to help save the Statesman and show your support for the student voice, keeping it away from censorship.

Economic Package Update

Today the U.S. Senate voted 61-37 to pass the Obama Economic Package. A lot has changed since I wrote my last post on this issue. The debate over the package has become more and more intense. This once stolid Congressional and Senatorial majority has chosen selfishness and partisanship throughout the debate in the capital over this package. I am in dismay over the hypocrisy of the democratic majority. Leaders like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are stripping Americans of the true legislation that will bring back American jobs and restore American confidence in the economy. There is no bipartisanship when it comes to the economy. Mrs. Pelosi feels since her pompous political party has won the election, they should write this bill and have control over where this nation is over the next four years. That is wrong. That is why we have a two party system. Debate and bipartisanship is healthy for our democratic and republican survival. This bill is wrong. Yes, I like the Senate version better, but it is still $800 billion. That is a lot of money. Our government should not be spending that much money on a single project. And what is even more baffling is that this money is all for the economy. This is not to say I am against government intervention in business. In some respects it is quite healthy, but I do not like government intervention of this magnitude. The $400 billion one, heading by Mr. John McCain, is more appropriate. It will also create almost the same amount of jobs as the other plan. The difference is that the McCain plan will create jobs that will last 5 or more years. The Obama package creates short term jobs, government jobs, to fix bridges and roads. But eventually the bridge will be completed. Then once massive amounts of government workers projects are finished, they will be out of a job. Now, Democrats say by that time the economy will be much better, but can imagine the impact of 3 million lost jobs in this economy or even a partially stable or dare I say better economy. It would be awful and throw our economy even deeper into the depths of this depression. Besides the economy tanked on the news on the passing and Geither's plan. I think Mr. Obama needs to take this as a serious sign.

Obama Economic Package Is Nonsense

I call myself a True Conservative. I abide my the beliefs on people like William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan. And I must carry through with their legacy. House Republicans are doing that, that god. The fact is President Obama wants to pass a massive economic stimulus package, and I mean massive. All $819 billion, is supposed to fix the economy over the next four years. This is the extreme amount of money. More money than we have spent on the War in Iraq and the Pentagon's budget. Plus interest this would be almost $1 trillion. This is extreme and we shall not have this passed. It is nonsense. So much of this money would go to "non-emergency" things. Things like money for the arts, stem cell research, and for sexual transmitted diseases. It is liberal nonsense and are not an emergency things. This package needs to be stripped of this liberal nonsense. What does the president expect? A bill full of liberal nonsense, he expects to be passed in bipartisan way. The only thing bipartisan about this is the opposition. All republicans and some Democrats voted against this bill. This bill will not directly affect the housing market or the banks, which lead up to credit, the basis for this recession. Instead of spending so much on infrastructure, give money to help the housing market and the banks, directly. The president fells throwing money at certain things, will then help the banks and the housing market. But it won't. Fix the banks and the housing market and those things will trickle down to help fix other things. You must work from the top-down, not bottom-top. Don't get me wrong, money for infrastructure is good, but that will not then help the housing market or the banks. The president needs to tone down this bill and take out the liberal nonsense and start putting things in the bill that will directly help the banks and housing market. The other thing is this bill may not work. It is a "50/50" chance. We cannot play "50/50" with $1 trillion. The president needs to understand that. Another thing is not apart of the package, but is the president's plan for bad credits and banks. His "bad bank" will eat up the bad credit and assets. What nonsense. I wish. I wish the big bad monster could eat up our bad credit and bank debts, but only a child can think that, not the president. Also, this plan would help control the banks. Socialism. This control spent two generations fighting socialism, and we will not give in to it, just because it is the easier things to. "Let's have the government control it all," must be what the president is thinking. Yes, it could work, but for how long. In the U.S.S.R. it worked, but then every now and then they would have massive economic recession worse than other Great Depression, leading up to a massive recession in the late 1980s, which helped bring an end to the Soviet Union. Now we see, Russia wants to go back to socialism, because it is the easier way to fix the recession. We should not let this country fall to that same idea. We are better than that. We do not take the easy way out. Let us keep in mind during this hard time of economic turmoil and worry over how large a role the government should play in this, we should remember these famous quote by Barry Goldwater: “Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.” and then by Ronald Reagan: "Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem."