After the Speech: CNN Poll - Obama Policies in the Right Direction, 71%

Are you talking about Obama or the House/Senate? Obama's constantly been pushing his agenda, but he can't force the House and Senate to go along with it, he's not a dictator.

I'd really like to see a change of leadership in the Democratic caucus. Harry Reed and Nancy Pelosi have both proven themselves inept leaders who can't legislate their way out of a paper bag.

No, he's not a dictator, but he's been a damned piss poor leader! He has signaled from the start that he was willing to compromise on everything and anything, just to get something passed that he could title a health care reform bill, even if it contained none of what he promised during his campaign. He doesn't need to be a dictator, but god-damn he does need to LEAD! He is a HUGE disappointment. He is Dubya-lite.

Harry Reed and Nancy Pelosi have both proven themselves inept leaders who can't legislate their way out of a paper bag.

Reid yes, but Nancy Pelosi has shown that she has more balls then Reid and Obama combined! At least she gets stuff done, while the other two sell out.

I had only one problem with his speech and that was with his attack on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is not a Political Entity and should be respected for interpreting the Constitution of the U.S. and setting precedence. His subtle actions show that he doesn't understand that all three branches of Government need to be separate. Our Government is not a Presidential Monarchy.

Mr. Snyder... I told you that he was Dubya-lite eight months ago. When will you ever listen to me? :)

He's a constitutional law professor. He (supposedly) knows the constitution as well as they do. His criticism of the supreme court was for prime time only. Yet there are those that are cheering him. More con jobs coming people. Get out your umbrella.

This discussion thread is the essence of the problem. Nelson and Lieberman should have been publicly flogged by Obama and/or taken in a backroom and had the lobbyists surgically removed from their asses. President Obama needs to grow a pair.

...and Jason, you can't be serious when you say that the Supreme Court is not a political entity...oh, that's right, they're only 'activist judges' when they do something that Republicans don't like...I thoroughly enjoyed the public whipping he gave the Court last night...when you sell out your country to the highest bidder like a bunch of whores in black dresses you need to need to be called on it, at a minimum....

In some respects, Obama has the same problem as Bush however, Bush was a victim of circumstance and Obama created his own mess.

Clearly the Bush Presidency did not go the way Bush planned because of 9/11, an event that for which he cannot be held responsible (they had tried to blow up the World Trade Center at least twice before and failed under other Presidents' watches).

Clearly the Obama Presidency has not gone the way he planned and I'm speculating that it is because, through several twists of fate, he ended up with a super majority in Congress and he tried to take advantage of that by passing healthcare. But now that has backfired on him and through that process he has spent a great amount of his political capital and alienated many of the voters that supported him initially.

But in my mind he still does not get it. People are upset with Washington and one thing they are upset about is are politicians that do not keep their campaign promises. The healthcare fiasco and the public sentiment are shaped by the fact that Obama did not keep his promise of a bipartisan effort, public debate, and time to read the Bill. The picture from Back to the Future where Biff knocks on McFly's head and states "Hello McFly." Obama seems to be just about as clueless.

I'm teed off that the SCROTUS (Supreme Court Republicans of the US) pull a ruling out of their derriere that blew off every limit on corporate campaigning guaranteeing that they will carpet bomb every district with commercials. Talk about Facism, this is Mussolini's definition of it:

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

Bush was a victim of circumstance and Obama created his own mess.

By mess you are referring to the economic free-fall we were already in when he took office. or the way he squandered a budget surplus into deficit over the last year? which mess are you referring to?

Bush was a victim of circumstance and Obama created his own mess.

4Real is the poster of above statement 4real?

The Supreme Court is not a Political Entity and should be respected for interpreting the Constitution of the U.S. and setting precedence.

I beg to differ Jason. The Supreme Court is now and has always been extremely political. The Justices are poltical appointees confirmed by elected politicians. Thye often rise from political backgrounds and don't leave their politics behind when they don the robes. There is the concept of a separation of the powers imbued on the three branches of government but there is also the concept of a balance of those powers. It is totally incumbent on the members of all three branches to speak out vociferously when they believe that the lines between them are being blurred or crossed. Conservatives have been calling out the SC for years over decisions such as Roe v. Wade, Campaign Finance laws, and anti-discrimination rulings. If our President disagrees with the nations lawyers, he should feel free to say so, just like the rest of us.

Agreed, I thought the most significant part of the poll was the historical data. Sure, 78% of those polled had a positive reaction to Obama's speech ... but that 78% was just about the low mark during 10 years of polling. The worst that Dubya polled was 75%.

Looks like potus plans on another hog wild spending spree this year.

Yep you must have noticed he said the savings starts in 2011 not now. So the rest of this year they spend spend spend to make up for 2011.

ok rick did you miss the definition lesson on budgets start next year not the year your in thats the way its done...... thank you for that keen insight mr pres..... I was surprised on that comment. it screams out for people in the audience to correct the president on the spot for his miss statements.. I'm pleasantly surprised no one called the president out.... see things are improving.

You mean the judge mouthing "not true" isn't calling him out?

So potus plans to take that money banks have paid back and give it to banks to make loans. Where the heck does that make sense. WHY would banks make loans this time but they didn't do it last time. Because potus says so? NOT

What about gm, crysler, fannie and freddie, aig pay back their money.

Actually you left out the most important part of what he said last night about giving money to the banks. what he said was, most of the banks who took the tarp money were large banks. with the money paid these big banks back he want to lend to smaller banks so they can start loaning again.

Why would any small business borrow money in these economic times knowing they can't possibly pay it back ?

Why would any small business borrow money in these economic times knowing they can't possibly pay it back ?

I've said that all along. Many small business work within a BUDGET.

Maybe they can get a deal and after 20 years if they still owe they don't have to pay it back, like college loans (curious to know how many already default). Or better yet get a freddie deal, not to worry just tax payers dollars.

Fighting two unfunded wars, one solely for the oil companies

Right on the mark Mike. I recently posted an article by thye AP that seems to be buried on the back pages. I got some good comments and also got slammed a bit but the gist is "blood for oil"!!

http://bobneve1.newsvine.com/_news/2010/01/26/3810958-iraq-seals-oil-deal-with-exxon-mobil-shell-groupwheres-your-outrage

Well said Mike Drescher.

Clinton left a budget surplus, Mitch Daniels and Bush turned the surpluses into a huge deficit.

Not exactly, but that's what people believe when they listen to the noise without interrogating the raw data.

A history of the debt since January 1993 can be obtained at the US Treasury site so as to illustrate that these are not "made up" figures:

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

In no year did the national debt go down, nor did Clinton leave President Bush with a surplus that Bush subsequently turned into a deficit.

The deficit was almost eliminated in FY2000 (ending in September 2000 with a deficit of "only" $17.9 billion), but it never reached zero--let alone a positive surplus number. And Clinton's last budget proposal for FY2001, which ended in September 2001, generated a $133.29 billion deficit. The growing deficits started in the year of the last Clinton budget, not in the first year of the Bush administration.

So where does the "surplus" come from? Here's the shell game:

The national debt is made up of public debt and intergovernmental holdings. The public debt is debt held by the public (T-bills, savings bonds, and other instruments the public can purchase from the government). Intergovernmental holdings, on the other hand, is when the government borrows money from itself--mostly borrowing money from social security.

When it is claimed that Clinton paid down the national debt, that is patently false. The national debt went up every single year. What Clinton did do was pay down the public debt, but he paid down the public debt by borrowing far more money in the form of intergovernmental holdings (mostly Social Security).

"Over the past 25 years, the government has gotten used to the fact that Social Security is providing free money to make the rest of the deficit look smaller," - Andrew Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Interestingly, this most likely was not even a conscious decision by Clinton. The Social Security Administration is legally required to take all its surpluses and buy U.S. Government securities, and the U.S. Government readily sells those securities--which automatically and immediately becomes intergovernmental holdings. The economy was doing well due to the dot-com bubble and people were earning a lot of money and paying a lot into Social Security. Since Social Security had more money coming in than it had to pay in benefits to retired persons, all that extra money was immediately used to buy U.S. Government securities. The government was still running deficits, but since there was so much money coming from excess Social Security contributions there was no need to borrow more money directly from the public. As such, the public debt went down while intergovernmental holdings continued to skyrocket.

The net effect was that the national debt most definitely did not get paid down because we did not have a surplus. The government just covered its deficit by borrowing money from Social Security rather than the public.

So in lay terms, imagine have a budget of $100 for clothing and $100 for groceries. And you decide to take $80 of the grocery budget and put it to clothing because you want to buy something. The "illusion" after buying the $70 item is that you have a surplus of $10 in clothing, and as long as people don't know the other "buckets" that make up the budget (or debt) structure, you'll look great.

BUT...you have an overwhelming grocery bill coming due, and as spending is now based on this new clothing budget (of $180), when reality hits, it's going to be doubly painful.

Hopefully that'll help.

Good to hear from Joe Wilson.....:)

Nah Steven, We could leave Joe out on the street. Never to be heard from again. That would be good.

Jenny

Clinton had to walk back from the yearly record deficits after 12 years of reagan bush. Deficit spending turns into public debt. It took clinton 4 years to get them down, and it is mostly because of his budget of 1993.

So after reagan the debt went from 700 billion,after being paid down almost yearly since ww2, to over 3 TRILLION. Then jumped to 4.5 Trillion in 1992. Cbo projected the same trajectory would have added 4.5 trillion by 2000. Instead Clinton got that down to 1.6 trillion.

Enter Bush and his resumption of tax deferments and record deficits, propensity for optional costly war, ill prepared for disaster at home, discretionary spending by the republican congress doubling. CBO in 2000 projected 5+ trillion surpllus. Bush walked away from that and gave us 5.5 trillion in public debt, plus a 17 trillion unfunded medicare mandate.

President Obama is probably engaging in cost cut efficiency measures, similar to Clintons reduction of federal workforce,reducing the fed to the size it hadn't been since Jfks administration. I will be interested in what corporate subsidies he will eliminate to do what republicans talk about, but never really do.

Acorn, Fred, Acorn

Did fine the arrest of the young man of Acorn pimp fame very interesting.

Scapegoats, George. Scapegoats

Just Another Sheep, we are once again doomed to disagree. I will live over it and get on with my life....no matter how hard it will be.

JR,

Doesn't matter what the media thinks. He got the voter pop per the CNN poll (please no carping about the source, RCP shows CNN is pretty accurate, so any carping is merely sour grapes). However, Presidents typically get a pop after SOTU speeches unless they really blow it. That really doesn't matter long term either as he now has to deliver. That's where I've been on him for the last few months - time to deliver dude. Until he starts leading I have nothing for him. I did like that he laid some smack on SCOTUS. He needs to do the same on Congress. I'd also like to see him call out Alito personally. I'd have got in the little turd's face after the speech and told him he was f**king with the wrong person.