John Stossel's State of the Union

This is part of a great article written by John Stossel

"Has Barack Obama learned nothing in three years? Last night, during his State of the Union address, he promised "a blueprint for an economy."...Politicians like Obama believe they are the best judges of how we should conduct our lives. Of course a word like "blueprint" would occur to the president. He, like most who want his job, aspires to be the architect of a new society. But we who love our lives and our freedom say: No, thanks. We need no social architect. We need liberty under law. That's it. ...Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek taught, the only "purpose" of law is to enable us all to pursue our individual purposes in peace. If Obama really wanted, as he says, a society in which "everybody gets a fair shot," he would work to shrink government so that the sphere of freedom could expand. Instead, he expands government and raises taxes on wealthier people, as though giving politicians more money were a way to make society better.

What should Obama have said in his speech? Here's what I wish he'd said:

Our debt has passed $15 trillion. ...But if we make reasonable cuts to what government spends, our economy can grow us out of our debt. Cutting doesn't just make economic sense, it is also the moral thing to do. Government is best which governs least.

We'll start by closing the Department of Education, which saves $100 billion a year. It's insane to take money from states only to launder it through Washington and then return it to states.

Next, we'll close the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That saves $41 billion. We had plenty of housing in America before a department was created.

Then we eliminate the Commerce Department: $9 billion. A government that can't count votes accurately should not try to negotiate trade. We will eliminate all corporate welfare and all subsidies. That means agriculture subsidies, green energy subsidies, ethanol subsidies and so on. None of it is needed.

I propose selling Amtrak. Why is government in the transportation business? Let private companies compete to run the trains.

...Still, all these cuts combined will only dent our deficit. We must cut Medicare, Social Security and the military.

I know. Medicare and Social Security are popular. But they are unsustainable. The only way to cut costs and still have medical innovation is to free the market. So I propose that we repeal Obamacare immediately. My proposal was a mistake. We should repeal all government interference in the medical and insurance industries, including licensing. It all impedes competition.

We must shrink the military's mission to true national defense. That means pulling our troops out of Germany, Japan, Italy and dozens of other countries. America cannot and should not try to police the world.

Those cuts will put America on the road to solvency. But that's not enough. We also need economic growth.

Our growth has stalled because millions of pages of regulations make businesses too fearful to invest. Entrepreneurs don't know what the rules -- or taxes -- will be tomorrow.

All destructive laws must go. I endorse the Stossel Rule: For every new law passed, we must repeal two old ones.

OK, Obama will never say that.

But I can dream, can't I?

John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of "Give Me a Break" and of "Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity."

Mitch Daniels GOP Response

Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, gave the GOP reponse to the State of the Union. When he first started talking I thought Oh dear - he's talking like a moderate. But then he got into his talk and he has some great things to say. My favorite is - "We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots; we must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves." Another great thing he said was "Out here in Indiana, when a businessperson asks me what he can do for our state, I say 'First, make money. Be successful. If you make a profit, you'll have something left to hire someone else, and some to donate to the good causes we love.' "

State of the Union Address

I have a hard time listening to Obama speak and I could not watch the whole the State of the Union speech. I only saw the last part. But I did listen to some of the pudits afterwards and to Mitch Daniels GOP Response. One of the Fox news guys told us that he sat with with Speaker John Boehner during lunch. The news guys asked him how was it working with Obama. The speaker said that Obama was a likeable guy but Obama has not spoken to him for over a month. He also said that Obama has not done anything in the way of policy making since last August. He said that is not a governing president. All he wants to do this year is pass the payroll tax extension. I could not believe what I had heard. I feel very violated because I sincerely believe that Obama and his family are just lording it up at the White House and spending all of our hard earned tax money on frivolous time wasters. Now all he wants to do is raise 1 billion dollars for his campaign so that he can beat the republican candidate. So he is going around everywhere and doing expensive fund raisers ($35,000 a plate) and bashing the republicans and creating a divide in the already divided country. I heard on the radio that if it weren't because of who he was (black person) the Occupy Wallstreet would be at the doorstep, because of how bad the economy is. This photo just shows how he is always lording it over on us even when he speaks. You can bet that he is saying "I" (He says I way too many times) I pray that he is not elected and that people will wake up to the fact that he is not good for America.

From Pres Obama's mouth

"If you will work harder this time than you did last time, change will come. If you keep on believing, we'll finish what we started in 2008. Change will come." I personally do not like his change and I hope that people will realize that working harder for him will only bring more pain. His change so far has not produce anything but rising costs of gas and food, a unpopular obamacare where nearly every state is trying to be exempt from it, riots in the streets because Obama touts class warfare and big Unions, bankrupt Green Energy companies and no new lasting jobs. I will work hard, but not for Obama!