President Obama gave a good speech to Congress, but his actions speak louder than his words (“Obama’s Oratory,” Editorial, Feb. 25).
If he is so concerned about our economy, why didn’t he cut the pork from the massive spending bill that was just passed and promise to veto the $410 billion bill that the Democrats in Congress are pushing because of the 9,000 earmarks in it?
Obama continues to portray government as the big problem solver when, in fact, it is the government that is the problem.
Instead of the power-hungry legislators in Washington deciding how to distribute our money, the people who work and pay taxes should be allowed to keep more of their money.
What a sad state of affairs when one has to use the words “allowed to keep.”
It’s our money, we worked for it, and we should be the ones to decide how we want to spend it.
It’s not the government that made this nation great; it’s the people of this great nation.
Marilyn Beasley
Joplin, Mo.
*****
Obama’s speech reveals that he plans to harm the economy in numerous ways: tax increases backed by envious soak-the-productive rhetoric; increased regulations; direct and indirect politicization of lending practices by banks; hundreds of billions of dollars more in corporate welfare and pork; boondoggles into uneconomic energy methods, and, perhaps worst of all, socialist health care.
I am selling a significant portion of my remaining stock-market holdings today, as it’s clearer than ever that Obama and the Democrats will continue to knife the economy in the back.
Mark Kalinowski
Manhattan
*****
The only way I could watch the president speak was to put a piece of paper over the right side of the TV to block out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her own version of the smirk that got Bush in trouble.
I see a shoe in her future, and it may well come from a Democrat.
James Cashion
Manhattan
*****
The only things missing during Obama’s speech were pom-poms in Pelosi’s hands and a sweater with a big letter “O” for the team captain.
It was quite a show.
P.T. Lennon
Larchmont
*****
Has anyone else ever noticed that when a Republican is president, he never speaks ill of his predecessor, no matter what kind of fiscal mess he inherits?
Lamentably, the same cannot be said of the Democrats, as Obama proved Tuesday night when he blamed the whole economic disaster on President George W. Bush and the Republicans.
President Jimmy Carter started the mess, President Bill Clinton enforced it and the Democrats defended it even as Republicans warned of the impending disaster.
Will the Democrats ever own accountability or shame? How very unpresidential.
Dave Becher
East Northport
*****
Obama’s address to Congress had all the makings of a traditional State of the Union Address.
He’s a man of sincerity – not bad for just five weeks on the job.
Wayne E. Williams
Camden, NJ
*****
In Obama’s speech, he again reiterated that he inherited this financial crisis.
Why doesn’t he man up and admit that it wasn’t the Republicans’ or the CEOs’ fault, but the Democrats’?
Check the facts and compare the last two years of the Bush presidency, when we had a Democratic-controlled Congress, to the previous years, when the majority was Republican.
Remember, the president does not spend the money; Congress does.
John Clabough
Pine Bush
*****
The longer I listened to Obama’s speech, the more I thought of Don Quixote singing his song, “To Dream the Impossible Dream.”
Robert McKenna
Staten Island
