Judging by last night, President Obama may have taken away only one thing from his recent vacation reading about President Ronald Reagan: the importance of optimism about America.
His speech was as upbeat as a Richard Simmons workout, as syrupy sweet as a Coca-Cola commercial and as positive as a Joel Osteen sermon. He sounded like he was trying out for head cheerleader on the “Go America!” squad, albeit in front of a congressional audience that was notably less rambunctious than usual.
Thematically, it’s hard to believe that the speech won’t go over well: What’s not to like in an extended celebration of the American idea, the American spirit and the American people? It’s as if President Obama were saying to critics who accuse him of not believing in American exceptionalism, “Oh, yeah? I’ll see you, and raise you.”
The question is whether the near-giddiness credibly meets the moment and is justified by Obama’s program.
He devoted the balance of the policy discussion to “investments” that are nothing new and have proven less transformative than they sound in presidential speeches: spending on alternative energy, education and infrastructure.
Obama first said, “None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be,” then singled out green energy as the next big industry that should be showered with government assistance. He promised that it “will strengthen our security” and “protect our plenty,” before noting the example of a small roofing company that makes . . . solar shingles.
This hardly seems worthy of the Apollo program that Obama invoked in arguing that “this is our generation’s Sputnik moment.”
The moon shot has long been a favorite trope of politicians plugging for new government programs, right up there with the Marshall Plan. It was a wondrous achievement, but it presented a relatively discrete engineering problem. If only reforming education, a complex task involving the crooked timber of humanity here on earth, were as straightforward.
Getting to the moon cost about $25 billion, or $113 billion in inflation-adjusted terms. That doesn’t even register in the age of $700 billion financial bailouts and $800 billion stimulus bills.
When he finally got to fiscal issues, Obama’s optimism became laughable. He said we must avoid getting “buried under a mountain of debt,” but his most concrete proposal was freezing domestic discretionary spending after its historic run-up of the last two years. He cited the work of his fiscal commission but without endorsing any of its specific cuts.
On entitlements, he vaguely promised more savings in Medicare and Medicaid, and called for “a bipartisan solution to strengthen Social Security,” without offering any details.
On the fundamental fiscal questions, he apparently believes in hope — that the problems will just go away without any political risk-taking on his part.
Obama’s call for reforming the corporate tax code and medical-malpractice law might issue in bipartisan legislation. Otherwise, the speech was a table-setter for the deeply partisan and ideological combat to come over the budget. The president is trying to take the rhetorical high ground of growth and innovation, while Republicans begin the grim work of austerity.
It was left to Republican rising star Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, to strike a note of realism in his official response. “Speaking candidly,” he said, “as one citizen to another: We still have time . . . but not much time. If we continue down our current path, we know what our future will be.” It’s only in making tough choices to limit government that we will “pass on to our children a nation that is stronger, more vibrant, more decent and better than the one we inherited.”
Whose vision, and whose version of optimism, prevails will be the defining battle of the next two years.
comments.lowry@ nationalreview.com