NorCalSavant

Tuesday night I started out listening to President Obama’s address to the joint session of the Congress with no particular expectations.  I have heard him before.  Sometimes I have been impressed but sometimes I have found him a little lackluster or humdrum.  Yesterday, however, I was very impressed and thoroughly enjoyed his exhortations to the Congress and the American people.

He spoke with courage and conviction about a lot of things that ail America and imperil our future not only on the short-term, but also on the long-term.  I was afraid that he would be bogged down in taking care of the short-term financial mess that we are in.  The long-term problems of energy independence, health care, and Medicare/Social Security be damned.

He showed true vision in recognizing the interplay of short-term and long-term problems.  He also showed his real mettle in his willingness to take on the difficult problems that have been routinely ignored for so long.

The Short-Term and the Long-Term Challenges

He referred to the previously announced steps to deal with the short-term problems of recession and job loss, credit crisis, and the Detroit Big Three Auto melt down.  But he also talked about confronting the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, dealing with rising cost of healthcare, and improving quality and the reach of education — all long-term problems vital to continued prosperity of America and Americans.

Reducing the demand for fossil fuels will meet the twin goals of security by reducing the value of income source for inimical regimes like Iran and Venezuela, and the planet’s environmental health by reducing the generation of greenhouse gases.

He pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term.  He even talked about getting together to keep Social Security solvent for the future, something that Bush wanted to do as well right after winning his second term.  However, his preferred solution was so wacky that even a Republican Congress could not go along with him.

Business, Economy, and Personal Finances

So what does President Obama’s address mean for business, economy, and personal finances?  One thing is clear.  President Obama and the Congress as a whole are focused on recovering from the economic meltdown.

It may so happen that the economy is in such dire straits that it might need more government action to recover.  It may also be so that the stimulus package might be just enough of a fillip to turn the economy around.  However, leaving the economy to repair and recover on its own will have caused devastating impacts to Americans’ jobs and personal incomes.  Businesses and the economy would recover faster with government action focused on improving bank lending and credit flow.

Apart from the overall improvement in credit and economy, the stimulus package will also have a positive effect on individual personal finances in a number of ways.  The tax cuts would put a little more money into the pockets of consumers.  Those buying a new car or a home for the first time in at least three years will have tax benefits. Credit and loans for financing automobile purchases or college education would be more easily available.

With the stimulus package in place, many more Americans would be able to keep and find a job.  Extended unemployment benefits would help ease the situation for those who lose their jobs. COBRA subsidy will help those laid off to easily keep their health insurance from work before they can find a job again.  A lot of home owners facing foreclosure would be able to avoid it.

The Republican Response

I could not have been more disappointed in the Republican response.  It was from the typical political playbook — full of sound bites and short on substance.  Governor Jindal began by being proud of and celebrating President Obama’s black racial origin as if that had anything to do with the President’s address.

He then started telling the story of his immigrant father telling him that America can do anything.  He then repeated the America can do anything mantra many more times.  He let it slip in that President Obama had said weeks ago that our financial crisis may be so severe that we may not recover from it.  Jindal claimed so, but I doubt the truth if it.

He conveniently ignored the fact that in Obama’s address just preceding his, Obama had vowed to recover from the crisis.  He also expressed absolute confidence in America’s ability to do so.  Guess, facts don’t stand in Jindal’s way.

After repeating America can do anything mantra many times, and delusionally believing that the idea and the claim was uniquely his and his party’s, Jindal then started with the standard Republican talking points that government is the problem, and tax cuts are panacea for everything.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikhaela/3256090707/sizes/m/

I don’t know when Republicans will tire of empty rhetoric like less government is better or tax cuts are better.  I call it empty rhetoric because the argument is never framed in what is an optimal government role and are we there or not.

If less government is better is a valid argument, then we can simply keep cutting the size of government spending and regulation down every year to ultimately zero dollars, zero regulations, and Utopia.  How difficult is it to understand that the lack of financial regulations brought us to this housing and economic crisis in the first place.

The same goes for taxes.  Instead of debating what is an appropriate level of taxation for essential services, the mantra becomes “cut taxes”.

The sooner we can have substantial, enlightening debate, the better.  But that is probably wishful thinking.

Is it?

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