Wednesday, February 13, 2013

POLITICS - State of the Union 2013

"FactChecking Obama’s SOTU" by Brooks Jackson, FactCheck.org 2/13/2013

Excerpt

Summary

President Obama put a rosy spin on several accomplishments of his administration in his 2013 State of the Union address.
  • The president claimed that “both parties have worked together to reduce the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion.”  But that’s only an estimate of deficit reduction through fiscal year 2022, and it would be lower if the White House used a different starting point.
  • Obama touted the growth of 500,000 manufacturing jobs over the past three years, but there has been a net loss of 600,000 manufacturing jobs since he took office.  The recent growth also has stalled since July 2012.
  • He claimed that “we have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas.”  Actual mileage is improving, but Obama’s “doubled” claim refers to a desired miles-per-gallon average for model year 2025.
  • Obama said the Affordable Care Act “is helping to slow the growth of health care costs.”  It may be helping, but the slower growth for health care spending began in 2009, before the law was enacted, and is due at least partly to the down economy.
The president also made an exaggerated claim of bipartisanship.  He said that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney agreed with him that the minimum wage should be tied to the cost of living.  But Romney backed off that view during the campaign.

Full article contains a detailed Analysis and Sources list.


"Obama: Nation Stronger, GOP Should Back His Plans" by Associated Press, PBS Newshour 2/12/2013

Excerpt

Uncompromising and politically emboldened, President Barack Obama urged a deeply divided Congress Tuesday night to embrace his plans to use government money to create jobs and strengthen the nation's middle class.  He declared Republican ideas for reducing the deficit "even worse" than the unpalatable deals Washington had to stomach during his first term.

In his first State of the Union address since winning re-election, Obama conceded economic revival is an "unfinished task," but he claimed clear progress and said he prepared to build on it as he embarks on four more years in office.

"We have cleared away the rubble of crisis, and we can say with renewed confidence that the state of our union is strong," Obama said in an hour-long address to a joint session of Congress and a television audience of millions.

Yet with unemployment persistently high and consumer confidence falling, the economy remains a vulnerability for Obama and could disrupt his plans for pursuing a broader agenda, including immigration overhaul, stricter gun laws and climate change legislation.

Obama also announced new steps to reduce the U.S. military footprint abroad, with 34,000 American troops withdrawing from Afghanistan within a year.  And he had a sharp rebuke for North Korea, which launched a nuclear test just hours before his remarks, saying, "Provocations of the sort we saw last night will only isolate them further."

Shields and Brooks Analyze SOTU and Republican Response
(24.02)

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