Much will be written soon about President Obama's State of the Union speech.
Shall we thus explore the state of our United States after one year of Mr. Obama's presidency?
Let's look to Heritage Foundation (mostly) for help with this endeavor.
By catagory, let's first explore the state of our:
1. Economy
Well, Mr. Obama has furthered the spending spree of Mr. Bush into unprecendented deficits. Why, the Congress will soon ask again to raise their debt level! After just voting themselves, in a midnight Christmas vacation vote, an increase in debt spending--less than a month ago!
Jobs continue to be lost from businesses--businesses which add revenues to our economy (and taxes to the government) while Mr. Obama's bailouts have neither created nor saved jobs--except in the government sector--and those government jobs don't add to our economy.
Speaking of job, Mr. Obama has just quit talking about jobs "saved" or "created", since the stimulus money is doing neither (in fact, lots of money went to bogus zip codes--who knows where and for who know what) and is just flabbergasted over the "unexpected" job losses. Mr. Obama pledged to create 3.5 million new jobs. We've lost 3.4 million jobs in the last year.
And to top it all off, the stock market is losing money again--because Mr. Obama is threatening our financial institutions with unknown taxes and restrictions.
He has raised taxes in a recession, and we the people now own a car company. And our economy freedom ranking has dropped to the "not-so-free" range.
What do you think, folks? Is this a passing grade on economy? I think not.
2. The War on Terror
Terrorists tried in our courts (due to Attorney General Eric Holder, who wasn't sure if this had ever been done before--hint, the answer is "no"), Homeland Security Secretary Napalitano surprised at the tenacity of terrorists, putting terrorists on US soil, and no real plans to increase our security against these thugs. Mr. Obama just states that our security system failed--the same system that thwarted 26 other terrorist attempts during the previous administration. Exactly what--or whom--failed. http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/02/pop-quiz-mr-president-why-did-you-fail/
So, war on terror (or is it man-made disasters?)--Flunk.
3. Foreign Relations
Africa:
President Obama has observed, I think correctly, that African countries need to take responsibility for their own welfare and solve their own problems. However, no real solutions are being offered. Instead, the continues Bush and Clinton assistance programs are still in place, although studies have shown that these incredible amounts of money have not helped African countries. While this administration has decided to stop aid to three countries where "democracy has broken down", there is still lots of money going to corrupt, dependent governments. So far Africa has not been adequately prodded to work on its own problems.http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/20/one-year-later-president-obama-and-u-s-policy-in-africa/#more-24296
Europe:
Well, the good news is that (most of) Europe loves Mr. Obama. However, his good ratings in Europe haven't helped the U.S. He has embarressed the Brits (with poor choices of gifts to the Queen and the Prime Minister, and with his return of a gift from Britain of a bust of Winston Churchhill--what's with this total lack of manners?), denied missile defenses to Poland and the Czech Republic, made everyone mad about his talks with Russia, and probably worst of all--according to Europe--Mr. Obama didn't get a world agreement on climate change. http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/19/obama-popular-in-europe-but-hes-not-doing-much-for-u-s-interests-abroad/#more-24157
Iran:
Well, this has gone nowhere. In fact, less than nowhere. Iran has continued to thwart the world's intentions to stop its nuclear program, and continued to support terrorists around the world. Currently, Iran holds several Americans hostage, and continues to brutally suppress its own people protesting against the fake election and the ruthless regime. Playing nicey-nice with Iran just hasn't worked well for President Obama. http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/20/obama-and-iran-good-intentions-are-not-enough/#more-24267
Russia:
Again, bad news. The Russians have gained concessions from the US (regarding the abandonment of the missile shield in Poland and Czech Republic) and the US has gotten nothing in return. We haven't gotten a START (Strategic Arms Reduction) Treaty nor help in stopping Iran's nuclear program. According to Heritage Foundation, Russia views Mr. Obama as naive and weak--not good for our side. http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/19/obamas-russia-policy-a-disappointing-first-year/#more-24184
I haven't covered the whole world, but so far--I wouldn't give Mr. Obama a passing grade.
4. National Security
In short, the administration has failed us. Terrorists are being tried in US courts, instead of being interrogated and tried as enemy combatants. And no one even knows who, what or why these decisions were made. Defense cuts are rampant--and the Pentagon continues to be underfunded --and also this White House is inadequately addressing arms control with Russia. http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/14/arms-control-folly/#more-23932
And as for Afghanistan? Lots of muddling around by Mr. Obama, without a really good idea of what he wants to do.
Enuf for now.
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