Obama Makes the Case for Government

newdeal20.org — The president's State of the Union speech was not a progressive's delight. But it straightforwardly and strongly put forth a case for government that the president has heretofore not made. Perhaps America is again ready to listen after the dominance of an anti-government narrative for so long. The president covered a lot of territory, and in fact almost all the important bases. He made several unfortunate nods to the right, including proudly boasting of his new offshore oil drilling plans and a renewed offer to use Social Security and Medicare as negotiating tools in order to raise taxes on the wealthy and cut taxes for the rest. He did not suggest that perhaps we could live with this deficit until the economy righted itself. He certainly did not suggest new stimulus, which is what we need. But the overall impact of the speech was to make a case for government.

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