State of the Union: Response Speeches

By ticorules on February 14, 2013 • ( 0 )

I love a good political speech, so the State of the Union Address is right up my alley. You can agree or disagree with the President’s assessment of our country but we actually get a clear idea of what agenda he’ll be pursuing in the coming year. But while State of the Union speeches are useful in that way, the response speeches by the opposition party are just the opposite.

Let me be clear, response speeches are useless shit. In fact, they shouldn’t even be called response speeches.

An actual response to the President’s speech would take time. Since these speeches occur just minutes after the President’s address, it’s impossible to come up with anything that specifically addresses all or even any of the points that the President just raised. So here comes the hackery. Since the opposition party just cannot in good conscience allow the President to rule the airwaves for the night, they feel compelled to come up with a speech that attacks him for saying numerous things. But as I’ve stated before, they don’t really have time to come up with anything directly relevant to what he actually said. Instead, since they have to attack something, they simply pretend he’s taken a position and then attack that. Here’s an example from Marco Rubio’s speech:

Presidents in both parties – from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan – have known that our free enterprise economy is the source of our middle class prosperity.

But President Obama? He believes it’s the cause of our problems. That the economic downturn happened because our government didn’t tax enough, spend enough and control enough. And, therefore, as you heard tonight, his solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more and spend more.

President Obama never stated that the free enterprise was the cause of our problems. Ever. Nor did he ever say that the economic collapse was because we didn’t tax enough or spend enough. One could make the argument that since the President is for more regulation on the financial sector for example, he does think we didn’t control enough. But that’s only is you were being exceedingly kind to Senator Rubio. Saying “as you heard tonight” is implicating that the President specifically said A, B, C. He’s basically talking out of his ass for the entire speech. There are way too many portions of Rubio’s speech that I and reality itself can take issue with. But I’m going to show one more exchange because I believe it reflects a certain Republican mindset.

And the idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers – that’s an old idea that’s failed every time it’s been tried.

More government isn’t going to help you get ahead. It’s going to hold you back.

More government isn’t going to create more opportunities. It’s going to limit them.

And more government isn’t going to inspire new ideas, new businesses and new private sector jobs. It’s going to create uncertainty.

And the idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers – that’s an old idea that’s failed every time it’s been tried.

Now contrast that with this section later in his speech.

I believe in federal financial aid. I couldn’t have gone to college without it. But it’s not just about spending more money on these programs; it’s also about strengthening and modernizing them…

The biggest obstacles to balancing the budget are programs where spending is already locked in. One of these programs, Medicare, is especially important to me. It provided my father the care he needed to battle cancer and ultimately die with dignity. And it pays for the care my mother receives now.

Isn’t it funny that higher taxes and so-called “big government” are only a problem when people like Senator Rubio and his family aren’t receiving the benefits. So government spending is going to hold you back–except for the federal loans that helped secure his college education and law degree. And government spending isn’t going to help the middle class. That’s weird because government spending on Medicare sure seemed to help his parents. I’m so tired of these people. Jesus, can’t you at least wait for a different speech to totally contradict yourself. Somehow only them and their loved ones are worthy of a government that helps them out. They suck up all the government largess they can from federal loans for education to social safety net programs then work to ensure that others don’t have the same access. Now all of a sudden the government spending is “an old idea that’s failed every time it’s been tried.” Except for the Rubios, of course.

It’s official. From Congresswoman Virginia Foxx to Senator Marco Rubio, the Republican party is now the “I got mine so you better get yours” party. Which would be fine if they weren’t actively trying to prevent people from getting theirs.