A Stirring Speech - But Is Obama's Plan Feasible?

Well our President really knows how to make an uplifting speech and he succeeded last night. At my age I have heard many of these ambitious and lofty speeches that Presidents use to illustrate leadership and utilize the bully pulpit to raise their favorability ratings. I truly hope this President is successful, but I have been disappointed before by speeches that promise solutions to all our problems and promote excessive government intervention in our lives, only to see them go down in flames when bureaucrats are allowed to implement these so-called solutions without transparency or accountability.

I certainly am in favor of bold action by government resources in times like this, but solutions must come from the ideas of both sides of the aisle not with the approach that “we won and we’re going to do it our way”. Solutions should incorporate the thoughts, values, and needs of the entire electorate.

Obama outlined a very ambitious plan which includes actions aimed at the current economic crisis and proposals for programs in energy, healthcare, and education that will put his stamp on the future course of the country for many years to come. To top it off, he set the goal to reduce the current deficit in half by the end of his first term. All this leaves me with a very dubious view of the plan’s feasibility.

I took some comfort in the fact that his healthcare remarks were focused on efficiencies and preventive medicine and did not mention the word “universal”. In addition, his comments on education for teacher incentives, charter school commitment, and the goal to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020, were very commendable. I was not encouraged by his energy pronouncements which placed emphasis on the wrong issues and not enough on cheaper and known methods of energy generation like more domestic drilling and nuclear energy. A cap on carbon footprints will surely have a negative impact on the profitability of our economy and exacerbate our current problems.

I was optimistic on his promise to make our expenditures for the war on terror more transparent and his accelerated exit from Iraq. But his comments on overcoming “extremism” in Afghanistan and Pakistan were vague. I was pleased, however, by his support for increased pay and extended healthcare for our military.

There were some great examples of American generosity and tenacity from the invited guests in the audience. The only low point was the remark that Joe Biden will oversee the effort to ensure that the stimulus money will be spent appropriately. Ouch! How about having a non-political and more objective person do that? We don’t want patronage to be a factor in delving out this money, like what occurred during the Great Depression.

I must say that the sight of Nancy Pelosi jumping up and down about 70 times during the speech with a stupid grin on her face was a little disconcerting, particularly knowing that she made absolutely no contribution to the bi-partisan effort that Mr. Obama tried to achieve in the Stimulus bill debate.

Good luck, Mr. President, you have your work cut out for you.