President Obama’s Speech

Barak Obama demonstrated in his campaign that he was a brilliant speaker, so it was no surprise that his speech last night was wonderful, witty, forceful, and full of straight talk, unlike the clichés and platitudes in most presidential speeches I have heard in recent administrations. I loved it. And in fact, I agreed with him on almost everything he proposed. The problem is, he can promise whatever he likes – what he can actually deliver depends heavily on Congress.

He promised frugal spending, and he promised during his campaign to put an end to earmarks and pork. Yet the stimulus bill passed with lots of earmarks and pork in it, and the $410 billion dollar House spending bill just passed is stuffed with yet more earmarks and pork. Will he veto it because of that? I doubt it.

He promised to tame the deficit, but as the $410 billion dollar House spending bill shows, the Democrats in Congress are hell-bent on funding every liberal program they have had on their wish list for the past eight years, with no attempt at all to figure how to pay for it.

He promised that not a dime of the money going to banks would go to the executives who got us into this trouble. A nice promise, but how does he propose to enforce it, especially as many of these bonuses and salaries are in enforceable contractual agreements?

He promised that none of the housing bailout money would go to homeowners who were speculators or who deliberately bought more house than they could afford. A nice promise, but how will he enforce it? How can anyone prove that a homeowner bought on speculation, or knowingly bought more house than they could afford?

He promised to improve education. A nice promise, but the quality of education is almost entirely controlled by state and local school boards, not by the Federal government. The most recent attempt by the Federal government to affect the quality of education resulted in the absurd “No Child Left Behind” program, which has been an unmitigated disaster in most places.

He appealed again for bipartisan action, but the Democratic Congressional majority show no inclination to be the slightest bit bipartisan, and the Republicans seem bent on simply opposing everything on principle. So again, a nice promise, but how does he propose to change the behavior of Congress?

I loved the speech, I loved his vision for the country, and I agree with almost everything he said. But I’m left wondering how he intents to bend Congress to this plan. They will applaud his words in public, but the Congressional ideologues on both the right and the left show no signs of accommodating to any of this, and I have yet to see any signs that he has tried to impose his will on Congress, and especially on the leaders of his own party, on any matter.

A great speech. Only time will tell if it is more than hopeful words.