Today marks the fifth time President Obama will deliver The State of the Union Address from the well of the United States House of Representatives. It is an annual tradition in American politics where all three branches of government come together and listen to the President of the United States. President Obama on this occasion will no doubt call for bipartisanship and use the same language from past speeches saying that we are all Americans. What President Obama is best at is dividing the American people – not uniting us.
Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)
You just have to look at President Obama’s callous rhetoric over the last five years to see how he has become the Divider in Chief not the Commander in Chief. From playing class warfare with the wealthy and poor, to pushing the idea that Republicans are engaged in some kind of war on women, President Obama likes driving a wedge between the American people. Now he will be using the upcoming sequester to divide Americans even further for his own political gain.
The White House went back to their old bag of tricks last week and released a memo stating how the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts would hurt the American people. Read below and see their laundry list of fear mongering:
• Cuts to education: Our ability to teach our kids the skills they’ll need for the jobs of the future would be put at risk. 70,000 young children would be kicked off Head Start, 10,000 teacher jobs would be put at risk, and funding for up to 7,200 special education teachers, aides, and staff could be cut.
• Cuts to small business: Small businesses create two-thirds of all new jobs in America and instead of helping small businesses expand and hire, the automatic cuts triggered by a sequester would reduce loan guarantees to small businesses by up to $540 million.
• Cuts to food safety: Outbreaks of foodborne illness are a serious threat to families and public health. If a sequester takes effect, up to 2,100 fewer food inspections could occur, putting families at risk and costing billions in lost food production.
• Cuts to research and innovation: In order to compete for the jobs of the future and to ensure that the next breakthroughs to find cures for critical diseases are developed right here in America, we need to continue to lead the world in research and innovation. Most Americans with chronic diseases don’t have a day to lose, but under a sequester progress towards cures would be delayed and several thousand researchers could lose their jobs. Up to 12,000 scientists and students would also be impacted.
• Cuts to mental health: If a sequester takes effect, up to 373,000 seriously mentally ill adults and seriously emotionally disturbed children could go untreated. This would likely lead to increased hospitalizations, involvement in the criminal justice system, and homelessness for these individuals.
As you can see the White House wants you to believe that the sky will fall if sequestration goes into effect on March 1st. They continually blame the Republican-led House of Representatives for these cuts. One problem, during the budget battles of 2011 then-White House Office of Management and Budget Director and now wannabe Treasury Secretary Jack Lew came up with the idea of sequestration. Lew who did a stint as White House Chief of Staff during the intervening years along with White House Legislative Director Rob Nabors introduced the plan to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The Obama White House wants to ignore these facts but you just have to read Bob Woodward’s book The Price of Politics to get the play by play of how sequestration was conceived in the backrooms of power.
President Obama does not want to take any blame for his actions. What you will see tonight is more of the same tired rhetoric that is to blame everybody else for America’s ills. We are a nation with $16.5 trillion in national debt and a stagnant unemployment rate at 7.9 percent. It’s time to look into the mirror Mr. President, and take the blame for your own failed actions.
