investing and more investing

Today Obama released the budget for the 2012 fiscal year. Plenty of writers and news outlets have analyzed the data and looked at precisely what this budget means so I do not want to focus completely on that, but I do want to list two important aspects of the budget.

1. Throughout the 10 year projection of the budget at no point would the government spend less than it takes in.
2. The deficit will be 10.9% of GDP which is a post World War II record.

 

Many, myself included, believe Obama missed an opportunity with this budget. David Rogers of Politico wrote, “Obama appears to have hurt his cause by not being more bold in approaching the debt problem facing the nation.”

Virtually every member of Congress made a statement about the budget but I thought Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) put it best saying that he thought it was a joke.

I thought it was a joke. It’s hard to explain how detached from reality this is, to think that the country can spend another $1.6 trillion when it doesn’t have the means. It means either you haven’t been paying attention or you don’t care. It’s absurd; [it’s] especially disturbing in light of encouraging language he used at State of the Union address.

Hopefully Republicans and Democrats will work together and make legitimate cuts that will balance the budget in the future. This will be a fight and hopefully in the end the budget will be much more fiscally responsible than the one proposed by the president today.

2011 SOTU

The teleprompter in chief will be speaking at prom night in DC the State of The Union address tonight at 8:55 eastern.  Or as Michelle Malkin as put it, “talk like a Republican day.”

The SOTU  is usually extremely long because of the applause the President is inevitability interrupted with during his message, but on the bright side we don’t have to stare at Nancy Pelosi throughout the speech.

I will be liveblogging the speech here so if you do not want to watch it or just want to read my commentary be sure to check it during and after the speech. I will also likely be liveblogging Paul Ryan’s response after the President’s speech.

Michelle Bachmann will be giving a Tea Party response which will be broadcast online.

Chief Justice John Roberts will be there tonight but Samuel Alito will not which is not surprising considering this happened last year.

Text of Obama’s speech here and according to Dana Perino of the 6,082 words only 207 relate to health care.

Text of Ryan’s rebuttal here

8:16 PM Central: Obama’s first portion of the speech is centered around Congress working together because now bills must be passed by support from both Republicans and Democrats. Is that what the November elections told him?

8:26 Oak Ridge getting some love from 44

At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, they’re using supercomputers to get a lot more power out of our nuclear facilities.  With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

8:31 Obama keeps referencing “winning the future” and other Newt Gingrich ideas. Several people on twitter are noticing this.

8:37 “The third step in winning the future…” more Gingrich. I can’t wait to hear what he says about this speech.

8:48 After a brief note on health care Obama begins talking about the spending freeze which before the speech a great rebuttal was given by Jim DeMint

9:00 Obama praises Republicans and Democrats for passing the START Treaty. Unfortunately TN Senators Alexander and Corker BOTH voted for it. It was a terrible piece of legislation.

9:06 Obama mentions repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and the camera cuts to millitary men who sit without applauding. Democrats give standing ovation.

9:12 “From the earliest days of our founding, America has been the story of ordinary people who dare to dream. That’s how we win the future.” More Gingrich…

Now let’s see what Paul Ryan has got.

9:27 Ryan is doing a good job of talking about what the President has actually done versus what he says he is going to do.

9:29 “Americans are skeptical of both political parties, and that skepticism is justified.” He goes on to say that Congress owes it to the American people to do a better job.

Very interesting Ryan is focusing almost solely on the economy and jobs. This is what Americans want to hear.

9:34

Millions of families have fallen on hard times not because of our ideals of free enterprise – but because our leaders failed to live up to those ideals; because of poor decisions made in Washington and Wall Street that caused a financial crisis, squandered our savings, broke our trust, and crippled our economy.

Great job focusing on jobs and the economy. Also he didn’t blame just the Democrats but all of Congress.

Really interested to hear what Michelle Bachmann has to say, I know it will be interesting.

9:49 In opening she says that she was invited to speak and it is not meant to compete with the official Republican response.

Bachmann uses a chart that shows unemployment from the Bush presidency to the Obama presidency.

9:55 “We will push forward…we will proclaim liberty throughout the land.”

Michelle Malkin points out that Bachmann practices what she preaches even though Congressman Ryan does not always do so.

People seem to be up in arms over Bachmann’s response. Apparently pointing out how Obama’s agenda has hurt our economy is uncivil.

Obama’s oil spill grade: B+

You may or may not remember that Obama gave himself a B+ after Oprah Winfrey asked him how he would grade his first year as president. If not here is a link http://bit.ly/7SSL5F

Given that grading scale I think we can all agree that he should get at least a B+ on his fast response to the oil spill in the Gulf. Even his biggest fans supporters have been outraged by his lack of a response. MSNBC all-star Keith Olbermann was furious with President Obama. After the speech Olbermann said, “”It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days.” http://bit.ly/aycJe0 What would the liberals be doing if a Republican president had taken this long to respond to this oil spill? I thought they went crazy over Katrina, but I can only imagine the hysteria that the left would be bathing in right now if Joh McCain had done this. Many have compared this to Katrina including Karl Rove who wrote a great article in late May comparing the two: http://bit.ly/bYOHwH

This week the RNC debuted a video which contains exactly what Obama did during the 58 days where he was you know…looking for an ass to kick, telling people to plug the damn hole, etc.