The REAL State of the Union from Institute for Liberty

Dear Colleague:

If you're like me, you were astounded by the State of the Union. Of course, it was predictable, but it is now more obvious than ever that the President of the United States doesn't have the foggiest idea as to how to set this country on the path towards prosperity and security. He not only fails to grasp the underlying issues that brought us into this recession, he is apparently blind to the actions on his part that have made this recession far worse.

The state of the union is as follows: our unemployment is at its highest in decades. Unemployment is at its highest because America's small businesses aren't hiring the nation's working families. America's small businesses aren't hiring, not because the government hasn't spent enough, and not just because government continues to saddle them with onerous regulatory and paperwork burdens, but because these small businesses see through the President's agenda and what it means for them. Why would any small business assume the expense of hiring more people if the President's agenda is going to drive up their health care costs, drive up their energy costs, and ultimately drive up the costs for manpower and materials?

In order to get America hiring again, government needs to reduce the trillion dollar regulatory state, not add to it. Politicians need to make policies that reduce the costs of energy and health care, not exacerbate them.

IFL's Senior Vice President for Policy, Kerri Toloczko, had this to say:

"Listening to President Obama’s plan to create jobs in the middle of his jobloss recovery by expanding government is like driving by the scene of a car wreck – you don’t want to look but can’t avert your eyes from the carnage. A painful display of his Administration’s lack of understanding of the basics of economic growth and its disregard for American entrepreneurship, it ignores sustainable private sector job growth in the sector most critical to our national security - manufacturing. Since October of 2000, American workers have lost nearly six million industrial-based jobs. More than 4.1 million jobs have been lost since President Obama took office. And there is real human tragedy attached to our unemployment rate of 10% - up from 6.5% in pre-election October 2008. The decimation of all 16 critical military manufacturing sectors from machine tooling to semiconductors is stifling innovation and has significantly eroded our military’s ability to replace and replenish needed materials. The Defense Department must now look to overseas sources – even China – to supply our warfighters with bullets, missile propellant and sonar buoys for our submarines."

And our Senior Fellow in Strategic Policy, Peter Roff, as he was live-blogging during the event, said this:



"The president spent far too much time laying the groundwork that will allow him to blame the Republicans for the Democrats’ failure to act in support of his programs. It was a strongly partisan speech – even I did not expect the level of attack that was levied at the previous administration, especial on the spending that Obama, as a senator, voted for. The president failed to keep his promises on healthcare yet wants the nation to overlook that in pursuit of a redefined mission to reform health insurance. His earmark proposal, while a good idea, is without teeth. In order to make it real he needs to commit to veto any piece of legislation that includes even a single earmark that was not posted on the web site he wants to see created."


What we should all take great comfort in is that as a nation, Americans are fairly united in opposition to this agenda--and are more than willing to stand up for what they believe in. I summed up this situation in a speech last week at the 1st Annual Conservative Leadership Conference in New York, a speech I think you might enjoy (you might even enjoy it more than the President's speech. At 8 minutes, it's certainly not as lengthy!). Click

HERE to take a look.

But what is equally clear as the President's general cluelessness about America is that we are going to have to continue to fight against him. This year will be just as important as last year in terms of pushing back against an agenda that tears at the very fabric of this nation's social and economic fabrics. IFL has some ambitious plans--and we'd like you to be a part of it. With that in mind, we'd appreciate your support as we move into 2010.

Please click HERE if you'd like to donate to IFL!

Thank you for your continued support of the Institute for Liberty. Together, we can be victorious!

Sincerely,

Andrew Langer, President