2010 State of the Union Address
Tonight Barack Obama addressed the nation after a year in office. Two recent events dealt huge blows to his efforts. First, the loss of the supermajority put passage of the healthcare bill in serious question. Second, the supreme court ruling that allows unlimited political contributions by corporations, including foreign ones, thus making Lincoln's "...Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth" a thing of the past caused a lot of confusion. President Obama must feel what a great setback this is when trying to make progress rectifying all the things that got messed up over the last 10 years.
So the President spoke of jobs first. That is because he realizes that the healthcare fight is now secondary to fighting unemployment. Of course he did make jobs his first priority: the stimulus bill was signed within a month from his inauguration date.
I often congratulate the Republican party on their 41-59 majority (in fact they even had a 40-60 majority). The blind opposition to anything proposed has worked. Nothing of importance has passed last year (except the stimulus bill). The President tried to expose that, but exposing it is not enough. Every day in which the status quo remains unchanged is a victory for the Republican party.
So what I saw tonight was a President that is actually busy rethinking how to accomplish his plan amid some serious setbacks. He is seeking to get the voters behind him again by curbing unemployment to have the public support necessary to pass a more modest healthcare reform than he initially envisioned.
I get the feeling that the President will continue to struggle to make progress on his agenda for as long as the Republicans oppose him as they do now. But I do sense that a turning point is on the horizon: as the next elections approach, the opportunity to portray Republican candidates as happy with the status quo is going to be real. If that begins to take hold and Republicans return to the bargaining table, we might get some progress in the coming years.
We need some major changes and Democrats need to drop their "my way or the highway" attitude that got them absolutely nowhere. If that happens, next year will be very interesting, and, perhaps, coming out of this abyss will look possible.
Until then, invest in gold and silver.