http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2011/01/26/obama_state_of_the_union_economic_plan/index.html
How the World Works
Wednesday, Jan 26, 2011 08:30 ET
The missing word in Obama's State of the Union
We heard the president talk about deficits and competitiveness and
even smoked salmon, but not "unemployment"
By Andrew Leonard
The unemployment rate in the United States is 9.4 percent. But if
you went to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address on
Tuesday night looking for a job, you came away empty. The
president did not even mention the word "unemployment." The stock
market "has come roaring back," he told America, and "corporate
profits are up." But aside from one reference to "the shuttered
windows of once booming factories, and the vacant storefronts of
once busy Main Streets," Obama devoted precious little time to the
current plight of Americans who might be facing foreclosure or the
expiration of their unemployment benefits. Instead he told us that
the "worst of the recession is over" and "that we had broken the
back of the recession."
That might well be true, so why not accentuate the positive, even
it does sound an awful lot like "mission accomplished"? To be
fair, Obama's decision not to emphasize pain and suffering is
totally understandable. The reality of the current situation is
that even if there were obvious, affordable, short-term measures
that could goose job creation in the U.S., House Republicans would
surely shoot them down. The next two years are about playing
defense, not offense. So put away any pretense at Clintonian
wonkery, and let's go for a Reaganesque parade of optimism!
It's a smart move. Obama could have made a big issue of Republican
intransigence, but that would have been a strategic error. If the
next two years are going to be about gridlock, then the side that
occupies the center comes out looking best in 2012. Fully aware of
this, the president took a road so high in his speech that any
attempt to evaluate it in terms of the practical economic policy
initiatives we can expect over the next two years got utterly lost
in the stratosphere. We heard a lot about grand goals that
everyone can get behind -- reinvigorating education, reinvesting
in infrastructure, remaking the tax code --but are going to be
fiendishly hard to execute. Especially when you consider that the
president also called for a four-year budget freeze on
discretionary spending.
Come on -- the numbers just won't work. If you're going to cut
$400 billion over the next five years, then the cash that you're
going to have available to invest in high-speed rail, or
biomedical research or clean energy -- all great things,
name-checked with relish by Obama -- is just going to be too small
to make a difference.
I thought Obama's most effective passage was his quick summary of
the changes wrought by globalization and technology:
The rules have changed. In a single generation, revolutions
in technology have transformed the way we live, work and do
business. Steel mills that once needed 1,000 workers can now do
the same work with 100. Today, just about any company can set up
shop, hire workers, and sell their products wherever there's an
Internet connection.
Meanwhile, nations like China and India realized that with
some changes of their own, they could compete in this new world.
And so they started educating their children earlier and longer,
with greater emphasis on math and science. They're investing in
research and new technologies. Just recently, China became home to
the world's largest private solar research facility, and the
world's fastest computer.
This is all true. We are all facing a more competitive landscape
and we do desperately need the investments in exactly the areas
the president set forth if we want to thrive in the future. But
thriving in the future is not the same as world domination, and
the president lost me with his constant reiteration of the mantra
"win the future" -- as if, as with the competing immortal
swordsmen of "Highlander," "in the end, there can only be one."
That's nonsense, and it betrays a distressingly parochial view of
how the global economy could and should work. We should be looking
forward to greater prosperity in China and India, because richer
consumers there entail larger markets for our own goods. Trade
does not have to be a zero-sum game -- properly organized,
everyone should come out a winner. American innovations spread all
over the world -- the innovations to come from China and India
will improve our lives as well.
But the rhetoric probably plays well with the home crowd.
Americans like to feel exceptional, like they're the best, and if
they don't feel special, they'll find someone to take their
frustrations out on. The person in the White House is the an
obvious target. So President Obama better hope that not only is
the worst of the recession really over, but that the economy
continues to get healthier, and quickly. Because if unemployment
is still over 9 percent in November 2012, he's going to find it a
lot harder to float above it all then he did in January 2011.
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