State Of The Union Shtick: Obama's 5 Unintentionally Comical Lines

Thu, Feb 14 2013 00:00:00 EA12_ISSUES

Posted 02/13/2013 06:38 PM ET

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/021313-644354-accidental-humor-in-state-of-union.htm?ref=SThru

Speeches: While pundits focused on the dreary policy details in President Obama's State of the Union speech, we were left wondering who writes his material these days. The speech was full of — apparently — accidental humor.

Either Obama recruited writers from "The Daily Show" or a thick cloud of unreality has descended on the White House. How else to explain lines like these in Tuesday's speech:

"It is not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government."

That's rich coming from the guy who jacked up spending to record levels. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government is now on track to consume an average of 22.1% of GDP over the next decade.

That's bigger than all but eight of the 60 post-World War II years before Obama took office.

Going to preschool ends up "boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime" and can help infants eventually "form more stable families of their own."

Preschool cuts crime and improves marriages? How was this miracle kept hidden all these years?

Never mind that the two states Obama praised for their commitment to preschool — Georgia and Oklahoma — rank in the bottom third for reading and math proficiency, and college attendance, according to the Department of Education.

Then there was this: "As long as countries like China keep going all in on clean energy, so must we."

All in? Sixteen of the world's top 20 most polluted cities are in China. The New York Times reported just a couple weeks ago that Beijing's air quality ranked a "crazy bad" 755 on a scale of 0 to 500.

The country has been building a new coal plant almost every week and plans 363 more, and China now emits almost twice as much CO2 as the U.S.

"Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs."

This would be funny if it weren't so tragically wrong. After trending downward, insurance premiums spiked 9.5% the year after ObamaCare became law, and another 4.5% last year. And that's before the main event happens in 2014, when ObamaCare takes full effect.

One study finds ObamaCare's mountain of rules and regulations will nearly triple premiums for young people. And his own health care experts say that national spending will shoot up 7.4% in 2014 and will climb 6% or more for the foreseeable future.

"We can't cut our way to prosperity."

That line had to elicit a chuckle out of Bill Clinton, at least. After all, the economy saw record growth in the 1990s even as real spending on domestic and defense programs was being cut four years in a row.

The 1980s boom, too, happened while Reagan was cutting federal "investments." And the economy took flight in the 1950s after Congress slashed spending by a stunning 72% in the years following World War II.

Obama's own record shows pretty clearly that the obverse — that we can spend our way to prosperity — is just as ridiculously false.

Apparently, Obama believes all this nonsense. Which isn't funny at all.

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