Posted on 01/24/2012 7:58:22 PM PST by Brown Deer
Following is the full text of Gov. Mitch Daniels' Republican Address to the Nation, as prepared for delivery:
"The status of 'loyal opposition' imposes on those out of power some serious responsibilities: to show respect for the Presidency and its occupant, to express agreement where it exists. Republicans tonight salute our President, for instance, for his aggressive pursuit of the murderers of 9/11, and for bravely backing long overdue changes in public education. I personally would add to that list admiration for the strong family commitment that he and the First Lady have displayed to a nation sorely needing such examples.
"On these evenings, Presidents naturally seek to find the sunny side of our national condition. But when President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true.
"The President did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight. But he was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse: the percentage of Americans with a job is at the lowest in decades. One in five men of prime working age, and nearly half of all persons under 30, did not go to work today.
"In three short years, an unprecedented explosion of spending, with borrowed money, has added trillions to an already unaffordable national debt. And yet, the President has put us on a course to make it radically worse in the years ahead. The federal government now spends one of every four dollars in the entire economy; it borrows one of every three dollars it spends. No nation, no entity, large or small, public or private, can thrive, or survive intact, with debts as huge as ours.
"The President's grand experiment in trickle-down government has held back rather than sped economic recovery. He seems to sincerely believe we can build a middle class out of government jobs paid for with borrowed dollars. In fact, it works the other way: a government as big and bossy as this one is maintained on the backs of the middle class, and those who hope to join it.
"Those punished most by the wrong turns of the last three years are those unemployed or underemployed tonight, and those so discouraged that they have abandoned the search for work altogether. And no one has been more tragically harmed than the young people of this country, the first generation in memory to face a future less promising than their parents did.
"As Republicans our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life's ladder. 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.
"In our economic stagnation and indebtedness, we are only a short distance behind Greece, Spain, and other European countries now facing economic catastrophe. But ours is a fortunate land. Because the world uses our dollar for trade, we have a short grace period to deal with our dangers. But time is running out, if we are to avoid the fate of Europe, and those once-great nations of history that fell from the position of world leadership.
"So 2012 is a year of true opportunity, maybe our last, to restore an America of hope and upward mobility, and greater equality. The challenges aren't matters of ideology, or party preference; the problems are simply mathematical, and the answers are purely practical.
"An opposition that would earn its way back to leadership must offer not just criticism of failures that anyone can see, but a positive and credible plan to make life better, particularly for those aspiring to make a better life for themselves. Republicans accept this duty, gratefully.
"The routes back to an America of promise, and to a solvent America that can pay its bills and protect its vulnerable, start in the same place. The only way up for those suffering tonight, and the only way out of the dead end of debt into which we have driven, is a private economy that begins to grow and create jobs, real jobs, at a much faster rate than today.
"Contrary to the President's constant disparagement of people in business, it's one of the noblest of human pursuits. The late Steve Jobs - what a fitting name he had - created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew. 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.'
"The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy. It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.
"That means a dramatically simpler tax system of fewer loopholes and lower rates. A pause in the mindless piling on of expensive new regulations that devour dollars that otherwise could be used to hire somebody. It means maximizing on the new domestic energy technologies that are the best break our economy has gotten in years.
"There is a second item on our national must-do list: we must unite to save the safety net. Medicare and Social Security have served us well, and that must continue. But after half and three quarters of a century respectively, it's not surprising that they need some repairs. We can preserve them unchanged and untouched for those now in or near retirement, but we must fashion a new, affordable safety net so future Americans are protected, too.
"Decades ago, for instance, we could afford to send millionaires pension checks and pay medical bills for even the wealthiest among us. Now, we can't, so the dollars we have should be devoted to those who need them most.
"The mortal enemies of Social Security and Medicare are those who, in contempt of the plain arithmetic, continue to mislead Americans that we should change nothing. Listening to them much longer will mean that these proud programs implode, and take the American economy with them. It will mean that coming generations are denied the jobs they need in their youth and the protection they deserve in their later years.
"It's absolutely so that everyone should contribute to our national recovery, including of course the most affluent among us. There are smart ways and dumb ways to do this: the dumb way is to raise rates in a broken, grossly complex tax system, choking off growth without bringing in the revenues we need to meet our debts. The better course is to stop sending the wealthy benefits they do not need, and stop providing them so many tax preferences that distort our economy and do little or nothing to foster growth.
"It's not fair and it's not true for the President to attack Republicans in Congress as obstacles on these questions. They and they alone have passed bills to reduce borrowing, reform entitlements, and encourage new job creation, only to be shot down time and time again by the President and his Democratic Senate allies.
"This year, it falls to Republicans to level with our fellow citizens about this reality: if we fail to act to grow the private sector and save the safety net, nothing else will matter much. But to make such action happen, we also must work, in ways we Republicans have not always practiced, to bring Americans together.
"No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others. As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat. If we drift, quarreling and paralyzed, over a Niagara of debt, we will all suffer, regardless of income, race, gender, or other category. If we fail to shift to a pro-jobs, pro-growth economic policy, there will never be enough public revenue to pay for our safety net, national security, or whatever size government we decide to have.
"As a loyal opposition, who put patriotism and national success ahead of party or ideology or any self-interest, we say that anyone who will join us in the cause of growth and solvency is our ally, and our friend. We will speak the language of unity. Let us rebuild our finances, and the safety net, and reopen the door to the stairway upward; any other disagreements we may have can wait.
"You know, the most troubling contention in our national life these days isn't about economics, or policy at all. It's about us, as a free people. In two alarming ways, that contention is that we Americans just can't cut it anymore.
"In word and deed, the President and his allies tell us that we just cannot handle ourselves in this complex, perilous world without their benevolent protection. Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb!
"A second view, which I admit some Republicans also seem to hold, is that we Americans are no longer up to the job of self-government. We can't do the simple math that proves the unaffordability of today's safety net programs, or all the government we now have. We will fall for the con job that says we can just plow ahead and someone else will pick up the tab. We will allow ourselves to be pitted one against the other, blaming our neighbor for troubles worldwide trends or our own government has caused.
"2012 must be the year we prove the doubters wrong. The year we strike out boldly not merely to avert national bankruptcy but to say to a new generation that America is still the world's premier land of opportunity. Republicans will speak for those who believe in the dignity and capacity of the individual citizen; who believe that government is meant to serve the people rather than supervise them; who trust Americans enough to tell them the plain truth about the fix we are in, and to lay before them a specific, credible program of change big enough to meet the emergency we are facing.
"We will advance our positive suggestions with confidence, because we know that Americans are still a people born to liberty. There is nothing wrong with the state of our Union that the American people, addressed as free-born, mature citizens, cannot set right. Republicans in 2012 welcome all our countrymen to a program of renewal that rebuilds the dream for all, and makes our 'city on a hill' shine once again."
Yeah, sort of like the first time that Mitch ran for Governor of Indiana and lost to a very well-liked, charasmatic incumbent.
Oh, wait, he won that election. Slipped my mind.
Hokay, this is an answer of sorts to my most recent question, and it plays to my hunch as well ;) However, looking over the thread, I am seeing no response to my question about your post at 56 last night...
Maybe it is more to the point to ask, why do you spend so much time on a Conservative site, when it is a philosophy that you seem to have so little respect for?
FRegards,
Tatt
May God guide our course.
“The better course is to stop sending the wealthy benefits they do not need, and stop providing them so many tax preferences that distort our economy and do little or nothing to foster growth.”
This part sounded kinda like the democrat line.
I didn't hear it (nor did I watch the SOTU) but admit that the first paragraph was a little difficult to read. What family commitment has he displayed that is unique to other first families in the WH? However I hope the rest of his speech and his dire warnings resonate with some of the tone deaf.
Defending Daniels is like Republicans in Maryland cheering for their former Republican governor (Erhlich) Compared to the liberal state he was in he was great...BUT he still was a “fiscal conservative” rino that had no future at the national level. Like Christie in NJ and Brown in MA- all great when compared to whats there but would not support them for national office.
As for the speech-It was awful! Here it is broken down:
“The status of ‘loyal opposition’ imposes on those out of power some serious responsibilities: to show respect for the Presidency and its occupant,
DON’T CALL HIM A SOCIALIST YOU TEA PARTY EXTREMIST!
to express agreement where it exists.
OBAMA ISN’T ALL BAD
Republicans tonight salute our President
SECOND SENTENCE OF THE SO CALLED REBUTTAL AND HERE I AM SALUTING OBAMA!
I personally would add to that list admiration for the strong family commitment that he and the First Lady have displayed to a nation sorely needing such examples.
NICE SHOT AT NEWT FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT
The President did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight.
HE WAS IN THE MAJORITY IN THE SENATE AT THE TIME, AND HIS ALLIES IN THE HOUSE HAD JUST TAKEN OVER WHEN THE SHIITE HIT THE FAN. SHIITE CAUSED BY COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS AND LIBERALS FORCING BANKS TO MAKE LOANS TO THOSE WHO COULD NOT PAY THEM BACK
nearly half of all persons under 30, did not go to work today.
CONSIDERING 1/2 OF ALL PEOPLE UNDER 30 ARE BETWEEN 1-15 YEARS OLD.....
“In three short years, an unprecedented explosion of spending, with borrowed money, has added trillions to an already unaffordable national debt.
NO MENTION OF HOW THE EXPLOSION STARTED IN JAN 2007 WHEN THE DEMOCRATS TOOK BACK CONGRESS
“As Republicans our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life’s ladder. 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.
AS REPUBLICANS, OUR FIRST CONCERN IS TO PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE-OBAMA IS GUTTING OUR MILITARY.
“In our economic stagnation and indebtedness, we are only a short distance behind Greece, Spain, and other European countries now facing economic catastrophe.
AND OTHER “SOCIALIST” COUNTRIES
But ours is a fortunate land. Because the world uses our dollar for trade...
INDIA IS NOW PAYING FOR OIL WITH GOLD AND OTHER NATIONS ARE ABOUT TO AS WELL. QE2 IS ABOUT TO COME HOME TO ROOST.
“So 2012 is a year of true opportunity, maybe our last, to restore an America of hope and upward mobility, and greater equality.
YES, EQUALITY! THATS WHAT A CONSERVATIVES NEED TO WORRY ABOUT /S
The challenges aren’t matters of ideology, or party preference;
BS
“The routes back to an America of
“That means a dramatically simpler tax system of fewer loopholes and lower rates.
WE”RE COMING FOR THAT HOME MORTGAGE DEDUCTION BARABARA!
“There is a second item on our national must-do list: we must unite to save the safety net.
#1 EQUALITY
#2 SAFETY NET
IS THIS THE GOP PLATFORM OF THE DNC’s?
Medicare and Social Security have served us well
AS HAS THE POST OFFICE, PUBLIC SCHOOLS, AND INNER CITY MAYORS
“Decades ago, for instance, we could afford to send millionaires pension checks and pay medical bills for even the wealthiest among us. Now, we can’t, so the dollars we have should be devoted to those who need them most.
WE LIED. THAT MONEY WE TOLD YOU YEARS AGO THAT WAS GOING TO YOUR GOVERNMENT RETIREMENT ACCOUNT WAS REALLY JUST AN ADDITIONAL TAX SO WE CAN GIVE YOUR MONEY TO OTHERS
stop sending the wealthy benefits they do not need, and stop providing them so many tax preferences that distort our economy and do little or nothing to foster growth.
IS THIS THE REPUBLICAN RESPONSE OR THE PRESIDENTS SPEECH?
“It’s not fair and it’s not true for the President to attack Republicans in Congress as obstacles on these questions. They and they alone have passed bills to reduce borrowing, reform entitlements, and encourage new job creation, only to be shot down time and time again by the President and his Democratic Senate allies.
NO MENTION, AGAIN, OF THE DEMOCRAT CAPTURE OF THE HOUSE IN THE 2006 ELECTIONS. “FANNY AND FREDDY ARE NOT IN TROUBLE!”-BARNEY FRANK
“This year, it falls to Republicans to level with our fellow citizens about this reality: if we fail to act to grow the private sector and save the safety net, nothing else will matter much.
SAVE THE SAFETY NET! CHARGE!
“No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others.
LIKE DANIELS IS DOING WITH THE WEALTHY ABOVE
As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat. If we drift, quarreling and paralyzed, over a Niagara of debt, we will all suffer, regardless of income, race, gender, or other category.
I’D LIKE TO SAY SEXUAL PREFERENCE BUT THIS CODE WORD WILL DO
If we fail to shift to a pro-jobs, pro-growth economic policy, there will never be enough public revenue to pay for our safety net, national security, or whatever size government we decide to have.
THE REPUBLICAN ESTABLISHMENT HAS DECLARED SAVING THE SAFETY NET (FEDERAL FREE MONEY PROGRAMS) IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN NATIONAL SECURITY. HOPEFULLY THIS IDIOT WILL BE KEPT OFF THE SUPER COMMITTEE WHEN IT COMES TO WHAT SHOULD BE CUT.
We will speak the language of unity.
SHUT UP YOU TEA PARTY EXTREMISTS!
Let us rebuild our finances, and the safety net, and reopen the door to the stairway upward; any other disagreements we may have can wait.
LET THE ILLEGALS INVADE, SCREW NATIONAL SECURITY, SCREW THE UNBORN, LET THE HOMOSEXUALS MARRY....BUT SAVE THE FREE MONEY PROGRAMS!
“In word and deed, the President and his allies tell us that we just cannot handle ourselves in this complex, perilous world without their benevolent protection. Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb!
JUST LIKE THE REPUBLICANS WHO CAVED ON THAT BILL IN EXCHANGE FOR A PROMISE TO TEMPORARILY NOT ENFORCE THE NEW LIGHT BULB BAN, DANIELS SEEMS TO THINK THIS LITTLE BONE WILL WIN HIM POINTS. “OH, HE IS SUCH A CONSERVATIVE! IM SO GLAD THE GOP WILL STAND UP FOR MY LIGHT BULB CHOICES!”
“A second view, which I admit some Republicans also seem to hold, is that we Americans are no longer up to the job of self-government.
I ADMIT, AGAIN, THAT WE SUCK
We can’t do the simple math that proves the unaffordability of today’s safety net programs
BUT SAVING THEM IS MY #1 PRIORITY!
We will allow ourselves to be pitted one against the other, blaming our neighbor for troubles worldwide trends or our own government has caused.
WE ARE SO WRONG TO BLAME THE LEFT
“2012 must be the year we prove the doubters wrong. The year we strike out boldly not merely to avert national bankruptcy but to say to a new generation that America is still the world’s premier land of opportunity.
OPPORTUNITY TO COME IN AND USE OUR “FREE MONEY” SAFETY NET THAT IS MY #1 PRIORITY
Republicans will speak for those who believe in the dignity and capacity of the individual citizen
BUT 2 DAYS AFTER THE 150,000+ MARCH FOR LIFE IN DC I WON’T EVEN USE A CODE WORD FOR THE UNBORN (LIKE I DID FOR HOMOSEXUALS)
to lay before them a specific, credible program of change big enough to meet the emergency we are facing.
THE EMERGENCY OF SAVING THE FREE MONEY SAFETY NET
“We will advance our positive suggestions with confidence,
CODE FOR: SHUT UP TEA PARTY
There is nothing wrong with the state of our Union that the American people, addressed as free-born...
IF TAX PAYER FUNDED PLANNED PARENTHOOD DOESN’T KILL THEM FIRST
I agree. I thought this was the reddest meat i’ve gotten from anyone in a while. Let’s not forget. This speech wasn’t some random post on a political blog. This was brodcast on all national media outlets.
A lot of people herd this direct assult on the debt party.
And the debt is our biggest threat right now, make no mistake.
This was a great speech.
Nice!
Loved this post. Now we’re getting real today.
Now that! Is some PDS dude.
Mitch Daniels as a replacement? The guy was a relatively uninspiring suit. And while his pre-written transcript I’m sure hits all the right points, there was no fire.
If the republicans are going to go with a Rino, then they might as well go with Giuliani. At least he’s one of the best orators in the country.
FLAT!
It sounded like a Republican “malaise” speech to me. I can see why the governor gave up his presidential campaign.
A news headline this morning read "Obama Delivered a Fiery Speech in Which He Had Tough Words for Congress, Wall Street and China."
All Daniels delivered after 15 minutes of delicate labor was a mouse.
I think the overwhelming tone of the comments posted here bear out my opinion that in a situation and in an opportunity that called for a General Patton, the GOP Establishment trotted out a General Wesley Clark.
Leni
No awful. Some good points. But his attack upon the wealthy. His weak attack on Obaba. Kind of a “warm soup” speech. No bad. But it felt like a RINO trying to appeal to conservatives.
> Gov. Daniels did a nice job.
Too “nice”.
To call Paul an oligarch would be to give him too much credit. He is a pissant crackpot nobody, not part of an elite, but as to "globalist" it may be a different story and that term may apply in a sense. He is in near perfect tune with anti-Americans all over the world (Iran, Ahmadinejad, Iranian mullahs, Al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Bashar Assad, PLO, North Korea, Somalian thugs, free-lance thugs, Cuba, Venezuela, Putin, etc.) in seeking the destruction of our allies like Israel, of our military capability and deployment (not just the conceded excessive presence everywhere but even the essential overseas deployments, i.e., see Alfred Thayer Mahan's exceptional late 19th century analysis of where and why the navy needed various strategic overseas bases and update the analysis to include the need to do likewise for the air force and army).
Damn straight it is interesting. We already had one Neville Chamberlain less than a century ago. We don't need another knee-jerk surrender monkey posing as a Western leader. Ron Paul interprets his oath to preserve and protect the United States of America as leaving America naked before our enemies, relying on trade!, trade!, trade! to make friends and influence people who live to hate our guts and who need killing by death from the sky with no boots on the ground, no IEDs, no POWs, and no trade deals of any kind.
Gingrich recently praised Andrew Jackson's simple policy for dealing with America's enemies: kill them all. Gingrich and Old Hickory are right. Paul is still determined to be an anti-American crackpot.
BTW, since you apparently find Paul to be sane, you should want to subscribe to the most sane of "paleo" publications: Chronicles, published by the Rockford Institute. While I very much disagree with them, they are good people who deserve to be patronized by folks who share their eccentric views. They also sponsor conferences and cruises and summer schools and subgroups like the John Randolph Society. Try them. If I am any judge, you may well like them. You can sample by accessing Chronicles on the internet.
I try.
bump
SpringtoLiberty posts - “”Nice!
Loved this post. Now we’re getting real today.””
In response to yup2394871293’s post -
“”Pssst...the GOP “establishment” isn’t just RINOs. It’s “conservatives” who like making every cultural problem into an unwinnable national crusade... It’s “conservatives” who squeal every time someone suggests some defense cuts...””
Is there a missing sarcasm tag somewhere? If not, you two might want to click on the linkie thingy.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1103363/posts
May God grant us strength, wisdom and courage.
FRegards,
Tatt
What on earth was Daniels yapping about as to long-overdue education reforms by Obozo???
No more bland an boring. We want not Ford, not Bush the Elder, not Dull, not McCain, not Mittwit, not Daniels. We want a war and we want leftist blood and guts and entrails splashed and scattered all over the gutters politically. We want what Reagan did to Carter and to ten radical senators including McGovern in one brilliant night 32 years ago when, having rejected the bland boring moneygrubbers in our own party, we slaughtered the liberals in the enemy party. We WILL have it.
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