I wish my predictions weren't so correct.
Gov. Bobby Jindal's postspeech reply did not come close to recognizing the gauntlet Mr. Obama has thrown down to the opposition. Unless the GOP can discover a radical message of its own to distinguish it from the president's, it should prepare to live under Mr. Obama's radicalism for at least a generation.
I'd argue that in terms of what America was supposed to be, Reagan wasn't "radical" at all -- he was a mild return to a TINY bit of our roots. He CONTINUED to prop up the corrupt Ponzi scheme called FICA that makes it perfectly common and acceptable for people to live their entire lives saving nothing and often live BETTER in retirement than they did during their working years. Thus we get a savings rate less than zero vs China where people have FAR less and save 30% privately, 50% when national savings are added in.
Living beyond our means and shirking responsibility for our own lives has become "the American way".
BO feels that our tiny feint back toward just a SMALL bit of realization that "delaying gratification / making good decisions in life" can have significant differences in income and overall life results. BO wants to change that and punish those that are successful and reward the failures. The markets are already responding. Why invest and get yourself over the level of government help? All that risk and work for no reward? Why?
Barack Obama is proposing that the U.S. alter the relationship
between the national government and private sector that was put in place by Ronald Reagan and largely continued by the presidencies of Bill Clinton and the Bushes. Then, the private sector led the economy. Now Washington will chart its course.Mr. Obama was clear about his intention. "Our economy did not fall into this decline overnight," he said. Instead, an "era" has "failed"to think about the nation's long-term future. With the urgency of a prophet, he says the "day of reckoning has arrived." The president said his purpose is not to "only revive this economy."
There we have it. Unless by some MIRACLE some political voice can rise from the right and get a movement going again in a HUGE hurry, we are lost for at least a decade and probably two.