The last five words of this blog title are taken from a recent article by Charles Krauthammer, syndicated columnist. My politics are the polar opposite of Krauthammer's but some of his criticisms of P:resident Barack Obama's State of the Union speech are on target. I would, however, change Krauthammer's title ending to "Brimming With Bad or Unworkable Ideas."
Krauthammer labels Obama's proposed Buffett Rule as "a tired replay of the alternative minimum tax...." and he ridicules Obama's proposal to give a double tax break for high-tech firms as posing defiinition problems and unlikely to create blue-collar jobs. I agree with Krauthammer's take on the double tax break but my concern about the Buffett Rule is much different from that of Krauthammer. I view the Buffett Rule as gimmickry and that it will impede efforts to get fundamental change in the tax rate schedule. I view a a giant mistake the adoption o thef conventional wisdom that the top marginal tax rate should be under 40 percent, which is well out of line with the reality that a tiny percentage of the nation's population owns most of the nation's wealth. In an earlier blog I proposed a tax rate schedule ranging from 16 to 60 percent -- Robert Reich wants a top rate of 70 percent. My prior blog lays out other needed taxation changes.
My fear is that adoption of the Buffett Rule will kill any momentum to raise the taxes on those with six-figure or even five-figure incomes. Relative to other industrialized nations, U.S. citizens are under-taxed. In this regard, I feel that Obama's plan to let the Bush tax cuts expire for only those earning over $250,000 a year as a mistake, not only because the GOP will not likely agree to it, but because the nation's taxpayers, speaking generally, either pay no federal income tax or pay too little
I also share Krauthammer's concerns about Obama's plans to give tax breaks to employers who hire veterans, employers who add workers for any sorts of jobs -- easily subject to manipulation -- and having separate tax rates for corporations based on whether they create U.S. jobs, or are low-tech instead of high-tech firms.
Krauthammer also caught correctly, I believe, the Clintonian aspects of Obama's speech, in which he called for "little things:" "little watchdog agenices to round up Wall Street miscreants and Chinese DVD pirates...." These little things include a trade inspection unit and a financial fraud unit in the Justice Department. The time to go after Wall Street "miscreants" was three years ago; however, Obama didn't want to look backward, only forward, at the time, so the Bush administration's complicity in torture and other illegal actions was given a free pass. Now he proposes to look back at possible serious financial wrongdoing when the trail has grown cold.
What particularly stood out in the speech was Obama's flat statement that "all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18." Kratuhammer calls this Obama "playing truant officer." Obama didn't say a single word about how this very improbable outcome might happen.
Charles Kratuhammer made no comment about Obama's opening and ending his speech with glorification of the military and Krauthammer also ignored any foreign policy comments. I was dismayed by the fact that Obama signaled no downsizxing of a bloated Pentagon; in addition, his advice that a represetnative demcoracy should model itself on a hierarchical, orders-from-the-top-down military structure is simply absurd.
President Obama made no mention of his assumption of the power to detain U.S. citizens and even order their killing. His celebration of the elimination of top Al Qaeda leaders masks the possible downside of drone strikes creating more violent extremists than they eliminate.
Missing from the speech was any indication that Obama might end his assault on civil liberties, which exceeds, if anything, any action taken by George W. Bush.
We also saw in the SOU speech the Obama practice of following two incompatible pathways, as illustrated by: 1) his call for more oil and natural gas production juxtapositioned against his call for clean energy tax credits and standards; 2) his vow to tear down regulations that hold back small businesses countered by the need to enact smart regulations to prevent irresponsible behavior; and 3) his fulsome praise of the military posited against the need for a new defense strategy. President Obama has largely followed the defense policies he inherited.
One thing Obvama did not take off the table in his SOU speech was his threat to use nuclear weapons if Iran crosses certain red lines in its nuclear program. The danger and lawlessness of this stance will be explored in my next blog.
In summary, the Obama SOU speech doesn't hold up well under close scrutiny but it appears to have been extremely effective as a political statement. His political base is more focused on playing up the weakness and meanness of his political opposition than in holding him to the promises of fundamental change he made the core of his presidential campaign.
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