I wasn’t able to watch the State of The Union speech last night or actually watch either of the rebuttals, but I was able to listen to most of it (I guess Sirrius radio is not a complete waste of money). What stood out for me was the lack of specifics, in Obama’s case I think it reflects the political reality it will be almost impossible to get anything big through the Senate and House in the next two years.
More shocking to me was that Paul Ryan architect of the GOP road map didn’t mention what programs he wants to cut, specifically Social Security and Medicare, his claim is the roadmap that calls for dismantling the social safety net, why not tout it. I think most people know why he doesn’t want to get into specifics, they are pretty unpopular ideas, so instead he relies on scare tactics talking about a “day of reckoning” without really talking about how he would avoid the scary “day of
reckoning”. Michelle Bachman is a train wreck.
The problem for republicans is that most of their plans sound good in general “reduce the deficit” blah blah blah, but they don’t sound so good when you say let’s end social security, or when you talk about raising taxes on the middle class, all ideas in Paul Ryan’s road map. So they are kind of stuck in a place where they can win elections by speaking in generalities but cannot govern because they are afraid of the specifics.
The sad part about the lack of specifics on the republican side is that it has leaked over to the democratic side of the isle as well, hopefully someone will come forward with some real specific ideas rather than just platitudes.