State of the Campaign, er, Union

I thought the speech sounded familiar.



Aside from it being a rerun, the speech was a Clintonian laundry list of new and recycled government programs, interventions and spending that promise to grow government even larger and more intrusive than it is.

The President took credit for bringing the American auto industry back, including Ford, which didn't take any help from the government, and Chrysler, which is no longer an American company. As far as GM, give me $50 billion, don't care how much you get back, let me wipe out the creditors and I'll save any company you pick.

He had a proposal for education that sounds good on paper.

Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.

Try getting that past his buddies in the teachers unions. They'll take the extra resources and rewards but make sure that everything else is so watered-down as to be meaningless. Also, so much for parents having any say in their children's educations.

The President also has the idea for states "to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn eighteen." This is not only unworkable but unwise.

First, there is no shortage of people who have succeeded without finishing high school. Certainly, the odds are better for those that do. But that's more a reflection of the fact that the willingness to stick it out exhibits characteristics that will help them later in life (persistence, etc.) and not some mystical power inherent in a diploma. Forcing people to stay in school against their will is not going to magically instill these characteristics in the people who don't want to be there.

The Institute for Energy Research looks at some of the President's claimed successes, such as we are now a net exporter of energy a

nd that domestic production of oil and gas have increased during his administration.Politicians taking credit for something good happening on their watch is nothing new, but as we have shown, the reduction in oil use is because of economic dislocation visited upon millions of American families by the longest sustained economic downturn since World War II, while the increase domestic production is occuring on state and private lands, while production on government lands over which he has control is going down. In this sense, the president’s claims are simply breathtakingly in their apparent assumption that no one will bother to fact-check his numbers.

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) presents the Congressional Western Caucus's response to the speech.



The Heritage Foundation has a lengthy roundup of reactions to the speech.

The Nevada Republican Party responds to the State of the Union.