THE ISSUE: President Obama’s speech on Wednesday about his deficit-reduction plan.
* According to the president’s speech, our nation’s greatness is defined by the size of the government and the goodies it can provide for its citizens (“O’s Deficit-Busting Talk,” Editorial, April 14).
Boy, do I feel stupid. I thought it was our democratic values, free-market economy and individual liberty.
Predictably, President Obama and congressional Democrats were all too quick to break out the cat-food defense. That is, those heartless Republicans will not be satisfied until America’s seniors are forced to eat cat food every night.
Roy Jenkins
Westfield, Mass.
* Our president is an economic illiterate.
Congressional spending is out of control and aids the president in spending out of control.
Our nation is doomed.
G. Rudmin
Bangor, Maine
* Obama’s ballyhooed budget address devolved into the first speech of his re-election campaign. He spent more time attacking Rep. Paul Ryan’s serious and comprehensive proposal than presenting details of his own.
Rather than a thoughtful document, we got rehashed Democratic demagoguery and more class warfare — the standard, reflexive liberal response.
The American people are the losers as long as Obama fails to apprehend how serious the issues of deficits and debt are. Of course, he may be the loser, as well, in 2012.
Paul Bloustein
Cincinnati
* Obama’s answer to Ryan’s comprehensive deficit-reduction and tax-reform plan offered few specifics. Ryan’s plan does not touch Medicare benefits for current seniors or even pre-seniors, as the fear-mongering Obama said.
Yet the president’s recess-appointed Medicare czar thinks health care should be redistributed away from nonproductive, infirm elders and transferred to more “useful” members of society.
It was classic Obama — a snarky, hypocritically political speech which stokes class warfare and offers little substance.
Ray Arroyo
Westwood, NJ
* Obama’s speech may have set the battle line for most voters: The Democrats’ mantra of more taxes versus the Republicans’ lower spending and fiscal responsibility.
Which would you prefer?
This was nothing more than a campaign speech tumbling into rhetorical absurdity.
Obama gave no plan or direction. He is just babbling on toward 2012.
Theodore Miraldi
The Bronx
* Obama’s neverending desire to further legalize theft by Washington for the “benefit” of those parasites willing to accept stolen money is change that makes this pro-liberty Tea Partier want to vomit.
Mark Kalinowski
Clifton, NJ
* Obama and other Democrats consider it a government “expenditure” when they aren’t pilfering my money by raising taxes ever higher.
That sense of entitlement is what led to their shellacking in 2010 and will again in 2012.
Americans understand that we can’t tax our way to economic success.
Justin Short
Manhattan
* In his speech, all Obama did was propose a massive tax increase designed to support and increase his bloated government bureaucracy.
To start with, Obama should have proposed returning to the 2008 spending levels for all non-discretionary government programs.
He could have endorsed his own debt commission’s proposals for entitlement reform.
That would have been a start to reducing the deficit. Instead, Obama is hiring new federal employees at $150,000 per position.
Stephen Kogan
Teaneck, NJ
* I have read and reread Obama’s speech, and I keep asking: Where’s the beef?
I see taxes and spending, but savings are nowhere in sight.
Ignatius Giorgio
Brooklyn