The November election sent a clear message to Washington: less government, less debt, less spending. President Obama certainly heard it, but judging from his State of the Union address, he doesn’t believe a word of it. The people say they want cuts? Sure they do — in the abstract. But any party that actually dares carry them out will be punished severely. On that, Obama stakes his reelection.
No other conclusion can be drawn from a speech that didn’t even address the debt issue until 35 minutes in. And then what did he offer? A freeze on domestic discretionary spending that he himself admitted would affect a mere one-eighth of the budget.
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Obama seemed impressed, however, that it would produce $400 billion in savings over 10 years. That’s an average of $40 billion a year. The deficit for last year alone was more than 30 times as much. And total federal spending was more than 85 times that amount. A $40 billion annual savings for a government that just racked up $3 trillion in new debt over the last two years is deeply unserious. It’s spillage, a rounding error.
As for entitlements, which are where the real money is, Obama said practically nothing. He is happy to discuss, but if Republicans dare take anything from granny, he shall be Horatius at the bridge.
This entire pantomime about debt reduction came after the first half of a speech devoted to, yes, new spending. One almost has to admire Obama’s defiance. His 2009 stimulus and budget-busting health-care reform are precisely what stirred the popular revolt that delivered his November shellacking. And yet he’s back for more.
It’s as if Obama is daring the voters — and the Republicans — to prove they really want smaller government. He’s manning the barricades for Obamacare and he’s here with yet another spending — excuse me, investment — spree. To face down those overachieving Asians, Obama wants to sink yet more monies into yet more road and bridge repair, more federally subsidized teachers — with a bit of high-speed rail tossed in for style. That will show the Chinese.
And of course, once again, there is the magic lure of a green economy created by the brilliance of Washington experts and politicians. This is to be our “Sputnik moment,” when the fear of the foreigner spurs us to innovation and greatness of the kind that yielded NASA and the moon landing.
Apart from the irony of this appeal being made by the very president who has just killed NASA’s manned space program, there is the fact that for three decades, since Jimmy Carter’s synfuel fantasy, Washington has poured billions of taxpayer dollars down a rat hole in vain pursuit of economically competitive renewable energy.
This is nothing but a retread of what used to be called industrial policy, government picking winners and losers. Except that in a field that is not nearly technologically ready to match fossil fuels, we pick one loser after another — from ethanol, a $6 billion boondoggle that even Al Gore admits was a mistake, to the $41,000 Chevy Volt that only the rich can afford (with their extended Bush tax cuts, of course).
Perhaps this is all to be expected from Democrats — the party of government — and from a president who from his very first address to Congress has boldly displayed his zeal to fundamentally transform the American social contract and place it on a “New Foundation” (an Obama slogan that never took). He’s been chastened enough by the election of 2010 to make gestures toward the center. But the State of the Union address revealed a man ideologically unbowed and undeterred. He served up an insignificant spending cut, yet another (if more modest) stimulus, and a promise to fight any Republican attempt to significantly shrink the size of government.
Indeed, he went beyond this. He tried to cast this more-of-the-same into a call to national greatness, citing two Michigan brothers who produce solar shingles as a stirring example of rising to the Sputnik moment.
“We do big things,” Obama declared at the end of an address that was, on the contrary, the finest example of small-ball Clintonian minimalism since the days of school uniforms and midnight basketball.
From the moon landing to solar shingles. Is there a better example of American decline?
Dear Mr. Krauthammer,
My German friends were concerned when they heard Mr. Obama's "Sputnik-moment" comment. They were wondering if Germany should start hiding their scientists.
Retread of his agenda: more spending ("investment") for education, green jobs, etc. And the MSM trying to portray BHO as "Reaganesque". Does anyone else think this has all been scripted ever since Nov. elections. Remember pictures of BHO on vacation in Dec holding Reagan books he supposedly was reading? I thought it was ajoke then. Now I see this appears to have been part of the scheme all along. Don't listen to his words nor look at his props. WATCH his actions.
It will interesting to watch him run for reelection on his record, something he has never had to do before. (Voting "present" in the Illinois does not count.)
That comment in the first paragraph about the severe electoral punishment in store for the party that actually cuts is telling. That might actually happen--who knows.
I confess I have had a faith problem with the US electorate ever since they sent Clinton back to the White House after knowing what they did about him and seeing his policies in action.
Unfortunately there are a lot of people that talk a good game about reducing spending and government--but that's as far as it goes. Their own personal cookie jar is sacrosanct. We'll see what actually happens. Obama might be betting against the odds here, but they aren't that long.
Dr. Krauthammer,
You are brilliant and usually provide and insight that drives me to read your columns when I see them. That being said, I am still left in awe that you and the beltway media still dont' get Obama. He is a totalitarian, not a Democrat. Once you accept this man does not want a constitutional repulic everything he does makes sense, and is quite predictable. Swallow the medicine, but it's liberating. Once I got this before the election, everything since that fateful day has fit the template of the totalitarian thug.
First, Obama believes in crony capitalism and has zero understanding of free market capitalism. Economically, he is a political opportunist and has more in common with fascists than with capitalists, since he favors certain companies like Government Electric and Government Motors and Boeing and unions. The "new" Obama is merely a capitalist gloss on what is essentially a fascist economic policy. Public conservatives need to get wise and start making this point, not merely calling Obama a crony capitalist. They need to pull the wool off the wolf and expose this "change" for what it is--the very worst sort of marketing.
Second, Kudlow says, "Trust but verify." So, let's consider the facts to verify. Obama is aiming to implement cap and trade through the EPA. He's trying to implement card check through the NLRB. And Obama is standing pat on Obamacare, opposed to the will of the people. I suspect that Kudlow is trying to "push" Obama in the direction of the center. However, he is simply playing into Obama's deceptive marketing game. Kudlow needs to use the stick now and not keep feeding Obama carrots. Obama's deception must be exposed. Obama's actions to reach free trade agreements require carrots, of course, but carrots must be given appropriately.
This column reminds me of the Krauthammer of old; when he would stand tall and proud against the lies and posturing of the left--and especially barry. This is quite unlike the more recent Krauthammer we have been seeing: the one that disparages the Tea Party--and its candidates, the one that praises and seemingly agrees with barry and his policies. In short, the moderate, inside the beltway, self-satisfied talking head that he seemed to become. If this [column] is a return to the "old" Krauthammer...I, for one, welcome him back with open arms. Now, just keep it up!
Garandman1a, I think November demonstrated that the public does, indeed get it (with the exception of a few blue states soon to be bankrupt). Republicans and Conservatives , however, need to learn how better to communicate their alternative vision to avoid the demagoguery that will accompany any rational proposal to tackle entitlements.
I should add, because it may not be obvious to all, that the charge of crony capitalism is a euphemism for extortion and patronage. Crony capitalism is a form of political racketeering and conservatives need to get behind an investigation of violations of RICO by the Obama administration--preferably by journalists so that they will have a political impact on the 2012 elections.
@wiredman
"There will be long lists of facts to use against him in the election. Unemployment is just one of many items on that list."
I hear you, bro. But we had Rev. Wright, Joe the Plumber, the Weather Underground and 57 states in 2008 and we couldn't stop him. The GOP needs to get serious about getting this guy out and not let the Tea Party success allow them to get complacent.
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