SOTU 2011

There are more than 11,000 articles and blog posts on the President's speech last night, and almost none of them are good. In an event that was geared to show bipartisan effort and cooperation with Republicans and Democrats sitting side-by-side throughout the chamber, the after effects are more divided than ever. The only thing that really seems uniformly understood is that the speech had no real substance whatsoever.

6800+ words of nothing but promises of more spending (if the President gets what he wants) for a brighter, stronger future. No concrete plans, no definite goals, and no outlines for how any of this is going to be accomplished with a split Congress and an increasingly angry electorate.

Ryan sent a barrage of texts as the speech rolled on about how "investments" in the future equaled greater and greater spending on the part of the Fed. He, anyway, seemed utterly unimpressed with the whole affair. I can't say I was any more happy with it. I had heard odd rumors that the President was going to announce a five-year Federal spending freeze, which I had taken to mean as the Fed spending not one penny more than they had budgeted for in their last fiscal submission in 2009-10. That was NOT what was mentioned in the speech, even though many ranking members of the new GOP House majority promise a return to 2006 spending levels (which would equal a more than 22% reduction in Federal spending in the first year alone). This promise seems just as unlikely to materialize as those made by the left, because they'll never get that kind of legislation past the Democratically controlled Senate. Reid has all but promised this himself.

I was a bit more upset at the prospect of Obama actually following through on his promise to "simplify" the Federal tax code. No mention was made of tax hikes... but he mentioned a simplified code more than once, and if that means (as I fear it does) the end of such deductions and loopholes as mortgage interest deductions, earned income credits, and medical expense credit schedules... then I'm looking at a $4400 tax INCREASE next year alone, because that is EXACTLY how much I'm going to lose in deductions if my fears prove true. And I am NOT in the "upper-middle-class" range by any stretch of the imagination. Liz and I combined are looking at less than $50k in gross income, and I'm staring a $4400 increase by 2012 right in the face. Is there any wonder why I'm starting to panic?

Nothing that the President said will do ANYTHING to simplify government, reduce spending, or increase revenue. NOTHING. Aside from the bitter fact that there was no real substance to the speech at all anyway, I saw nothing to give me even a slight hope of improvement from the White House, and nothing since that has led me to believe that the Dems have a "plan" that will deliver what they have continually promised.