A SOTU speech only Washington could love

http://tinyurl.com/y96bahb
Morning Bell: A Speech Only Washington Could Love from The Heritage Foundation
...President Barack Obama came to office expecting to pass a “big bang” of policy changes all in the first year: health care, cap-and-trade, and banking regulation. With the big-bang strategy officially a failure [1], President Obama’s State of the Union address...tried to keep all of these legislative efforts alive while also acknowledging that the country has firmly rejected his policy agenda....result was an incoherent mess of promised tax cuts for small businesses coupled with the threat of tax hikes from his health care and energy proposals; more federal money to encourage banks to lend to businesses, coupled with new taxes on banks and individuals; the continued waste of his $862 billion stimulus plan and $2 trillion in new health care spending, coupled with a delayed and temporary spending freeze...Highlights include:...The tax credit for new hires is another recycled idea ...Last tried in the 1970s, the tax credit proved to be a windfall for big businesses that were planning to hire anyway. Small businesses, the engine of job growth, did not use the tax credit...will likely also delay hiring since businesses that understand the tax credit now face an incentive to postpone hiring decisions to take advantage of the tax credit. Extending the Bush tax cuts and undoing the heavy taxes in the health care legislation is a better step to job creation than this tax credit...President Obama tonight called for a new tax on banks and other large financial institutions, “a modest fee,” he said, “to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need.”...Obama knows that almost every major bank has paid-back...Taxpayers made substantial profits on those repayments. On the other hand, most of the companies that still owe billions to taxpayers, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and auto firms GM and Chrysler, would not be subject to the tax. In short, Mr. Obama would tax those that have paid back taxpayers and exempt those who have not....Obama’s spending freeze would apply to a narrow sliver of spending (somewhere around 1/8th of total spending) and at best, savings would be less than one percent of the total budget....explicitly exempts the very entitlement programs driving future deficits....it would start next year, conveniently after the elections...His calls for new nuclear power, offshore oil and gas exploration, and other new energy technologies are certainly welcome.***But who believes him?*** ...his program of subsidies, special tax treatment, and government support ...ignores the evidence that these programs end up killing more jobs than they create. Spain has already gone down this road,...Each green job created cost on average $758,471... foreign affairs did seem like an afterthought, briefly addressed. ...the fight on terrorism has not...been advanced by the Obama administration — quite the reverse as the nation has become more vulnerable. Nor has the administration distinguished itself by its support for human rights in Iran — in fact it missed a critical moment to get involved during last summer’s uprisings against the Iranian regime....“Economic thinkers have recognized for generations that every person has two ways to become wealthier. One is to produce more, the other is to capture more of what others produce. … ...every policy proposal in Obama’s speech last night is a boon for the lawyer/lobbyist economy in Washington and a hindrance to wealth-creating Americans everywhere. ...
* According to the latest Rasmussen Reports poll, only 29% of U.S. voters now say the country is heading in the right direction, the lowest level of voter confidence in the nation’s current course so far this year.
* Despite President Obama’s supposed spending freeze, the federal government expects to add more government jobs.
* According to not one , but two , New York Times Supreme Court analysts, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was correct when he mouthed “not true” after President Obama mischaracterized the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance law decision.***Actually, Obama made TWO mistakes in his unprecedented attack on the Supreme Court. He should know better: although NOT a regular faculty member of the University of Chicago, he did teach a course on voting rights law as a "Senior Lecturer" ( a title the UofC uses for non-academics doing some teaching.)***
http://tinyurl.com/yc7s28n
*... New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Wednesday he did not want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s trial in Manhattan.
* Global warming fear mongers are now blaming this winter’s cold weather on global warming .