President Obama is an incredible speaker. When on stage he resembles a preacher in a pulpit, often to similar affect. His speech before a joint session of the houses of Congress tonight is the perfect example of rubbish couched in eloquence. There were myriad pleas to humanity, citing one example after another of suffering to elicit emotion, but not much of what he proposed offers substantive solutions; rather, his Socialistic decrees will surely lead this country in the opposite direction. Here’s what I mean:

A big issue on everyone’s’ mind is the economy. We are bombarded with bad news daily, mainly from our public leaders. They tell us that unemployment is on the rise and will likely skyrocket. They tell us that we are facing severe and prolonged Depression unless we fork over trillions for them to play with. They tell us all sorts of things, like bailing out this bank will prevent systemic collapse, or forcing us to lend money to automakers that have not seen profit in decades is patriotic, etc. Our public leaders are not short of calls to patriotism and collective sacrifice these days.

Banking.

President Obama’s proposals begin with forcing banks to lend, adding more regulations to their activities, and cutting back on executive compensation. “I intend to hold these banks fully accountable for the assistance they receive, and this time, they will have to clearly demonstrate how taxpayer dollars result in more lending for the American taxpayer. This time, CEOs won’t be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.”

Clearly, Obama holds a good deal of disdain for Wall Street and banking executives. Why this group so heavily subsidized his presidential campaign is a mystery! Unfortunately, more regulation and involving government in management compensation issues will not bring the financial sector out of the doldrums. Nor will forcing banks to lend based on political considerations. Banks lend for a reason-not for fun, compassion, or spite, but to earn a profit. Healthy banking requires judicious decision-making with regards to the use of capital. With the federal government overseeing banks and mandating they increase lending, we will undoubtedly experience waste, capital misallocation, and inflation as the money supply is forced to grow.

Energy, Health Care, and Education.

Obama calls for $15 billion per year on alternative energy investment, saying that the nation must focus on wind, solar, biofuels, clean coal, and vehicle efficiency standards. He then calls for a sweeping carbon cap-and-trade program, which he terms “market oriented.” The likely result from this grandiose central planning: more fraud, waste, and abuse of the system, limited technological or economic success, growth of oversight bureaucracies, and higher energy costs for Americans. Electricity will become appreciably more expensive as power plants must pay for carbon offsets. The only way any of this will help the economy is if some government bureaucrat stumbles upon research success, but this eventuality decreases in likelihood the more we politicize research.

“We can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold,” Obama begins and then launches into a series of measures that lead to Socialized health care: Centralization of health records (which he oddly describes as “protecting privacy”!), a federal crusade to fight cancer, and whatever he means by saying “we must have quality, affordable health care for every American.” Ironically, quality and system affordability are inversely related to access!

Finally, to add to the perversion and double-speak Obama cites the move to Socialized health care as one that will “bring down the deficit in years to come.” Costs are never reduced by moving anything to government to manage. When did Americans start believing that government runs things efficiently?

With regards to education, Obama begins by saying: “It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work. But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it.” This is his call to arms for every U.S. citizen to go to at least one year of higher education. He further bans people from dropping out of high school:

“And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country — and this country needs and values the talents of every American.”

This kind of language can quickly morph into persecution, branding people unpatriotic and perhaps treasonous for not satisfying bureaucratic mandates. Such a thought is not too far from the realm of possibility. It is no business of any politician what any of us do with our lives. If the Constitution and Bill of Rights still mean anything, we can confidently refute this notion by saying that “yes we still do have options, Mr. President, whether you like them or not!”

Obama wraps up the speech with a promise: “I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office. We have already identified two trillion dollars in savings over the next decade.”

Given that the federal government is committed to spending between $2 trillion to $3 trillion in deficit this year, alone, it is not clear what Obama means by saying he has uncovered $2 trillion in savings. Although, we do know how he intends to make up for some of the deficit: “We will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.” Oh, and then there’s the massive tax increases to the top 5% of the population, in terms of income. How does discriminatory taxation equate to “fair and balance[d]“?

Protectionism and punative taxation are not ingredients in the recipe of economic success. This country is becoming increasingly hostile to work, savings, innovation, and wealth-pretty much all of the requirements for prosperity!

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