Early Reviews of Obama's Speech

TPM. Washington Monthly and Dailykos weighed in with approval of President Obama's speech. Washington Monthly called it a welcomed articulation of a progressive view of government. The Daily Kos live blog of the speech captured its highlights and captured when President Obama zinged Paul Ryan's Plan.

Most importantly from my point of view was Paul Krugman's instant view that this speech was "wonk tested" and that if the President's speech was the plan forwarded it would be a good one. But Krugman did mention that anything half way because of political negotiations would be bad. Asked why he didn't submit the Obama plan to the same criteria as Ryan's, he noted that was simply no equivalence. Obama's plan was real and Ryan's plan was fraudulent.

The Republicans have gone more ape than usual. Ryan was all huffy about Obama's charaterization of his plans for Medicare and denounced the partisan tone of the speech. For this reason alone, Ryan in his role as President designate says there can be no budget deal for 2012. If anything Obama exposed the poster boy as an asshole. Good for him.

Other House members chimed in that Obama's Plan is too little, too late. Why? Is it who gets there first? So we can expect the House Republicans to continue to act as terrorists taking hostages. Now their feelings are hurt because the President exposed their fraud and sounded like a Democrat. Didn't he promise bipartisanship?

What polls of Republicans show is that one-third of them want no cuts to Medicare benefits. The President simply laid out how the Ryan plan would increase the cost of medical care for the elderly and also would gut care for the disabled. The Republicans know that their rapidly aging base is terrified of these changes.

What I found interesting in the dynamic of the Republican response is the defensiveness over taxes. Gone was the old bravado. Now the line is that new taxes of the wealthy will not generate revenues. They are no longer arguing the position that tax cuts increase revenues since this has been so thoroughly debunked.

I am sure we will have these talking points refined in the upcoming days. But we are in the squirrel stage where Republicans are trying to score points over Obama's wording of these tax increases. This comes when House Republicans, especially freshman, are nervous as well about voting for the Ryan Plan. By early evening, however, Boehner who was himself skittish about it says that it's Ryan's Plan or nothing.

This is where the Democrats need to get the video going. The House is still planning to vote on this Plan. After the President critiqued it today,the House freshmen will be signing their death warrant. Photograph each member as they vote and run the television ads.

Obama deeply wounded the Republicans first when he mentioned that President Reagan and Tip O'Neill came together and saved social security and secondly when he used David Stockman's quotes against Paul Ryan's plan as saying it wasn't serious. Obama used Reagan before when he defended the New Start Treaty. Let's see how far it gets him this time.

As Paul Krugman suggested, President Obama's plan actually will cut 4 trillion from the deficit but Paul Ryan's claim of $4.5 trillion just won't fly in the real world. Just remember Ryan increases defense spending and he cuts the top income tax rate to 25%. This will balloon the deficit. George H.W. Bush didn't call this "voodoo economics" for nothing.

As if primed for the event, all the major economic policy think tanks unleashed data about how we got the national debt in the first place and who was responsible. Overall the President did himself proud and scored heavily. The Republicans, who had the text hours beforehand,I think, underestimated--once again--the effect of the delivery. And I think it sunk in that President Obama was talking about a social contract they now have to attack.