State of the Union... As I See It

Americans today, right now, are confused, angry, frustrated, and scared to death. The President tried to address these feelings last night in his State of the Union. It was a good speech, but I honestly don't think it made many people feel better. The reason being there has been a gigantic failure on the part of the President and the Democratically controlled Congress.

It starts with health care reform. For the last year this has been the brass ring that President Obama was going to snatch, where other Presidents had failed. He learned, and continues to learn, why they failed. 1) President Obama should have developed the health care reform bill himself and not just said he wanted one, and leave it up to the Congress to hammer out. 2)During the process of developing a bill in Congress he offered no leadership in pushing it forward. 3)By leaving the details to Congress, the effort became labored, altered by special interests, and so convoluted the American people didn't understand it, and ultimately ran away from it. 4)Desperate for passage Senator Ben Nelson (D) Nebraska gets Medicaid paid for in his State forever in order to garnish his vote. This was the back breaker. This is what made people say "what the hell is in this reform, and why do we have to give sweetheart deals to get it passed?" This didn't make the need for reform any less vital, but it totally changed the focus of the legislation. Now people turned away from health care reform, and looked toward government reform. All this feeding into the ongoing lack of faith in the Federal Government.

A recent NBC/WSJ Poll registered three very telling statistics. 70% of the people polled said the Federal Government is NOT WORKING WELL, another 82% say there is TOO MUCH OUTSIDE INFLUENCE IN GOV'T, while finally 93% of people say THERE IS TOO MUCH PARTISAN BICKERING IN WASHINGTON. The American people are fed up with the ongoing gridlock that has come to define Washington D.C., and I am one of them.

So now we have a health care bill that has passed both houses of congress, and the more time that goes by the less likely it will cross the finish line. All because the President and the Democrats in Congress dicked around and squandered a boat load of political capital on what now has a very uncertain future. An 18 member lead in the House, 60 Votes in the Senate, and the White House. The question that rises is, with this kind of a majority how can you NOT get your legislation passed? It is obscene in the extreme that given this situation, you can become paralyzed by the minority party when you don't even need them! The cry now "We've lost one Senate seat in Massachusetts, all is lost"! Are you kidding me?! ...and the real crime here is that while we pandered for bi-partisanship, and delayed, and offered olive branches to the opposition, they just dug in, sat on their hands, and watched as the President and Democrats imploded.

Is it any wonder people feel the way they do? I'm currently reading a book about the American Revolution, and I have to tell you, that musket above the fireplace is looking pretty good these days. Our government is broken, bought, ripe for the highest bidder. Our economy is hurting, our people are hurting, and no one from the government is here to help. So with a spineless majority, and a minority unwilling to give up its ideals for action, I'd say the State of the Union is pretty bad.