Obama's next speech should eviscerate the Rs about the role and function of government

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

He doesn't seem to know it, but he is undercutting any progress he might make in his own administration by buying into Right Wing deficit frames. Deficits only really matter when it's convenient for Republicans to scaremonger on in campaign mode while they actually drive UP costs as the end result of their privatization efforts and empire building. No better authority on that than Dick Cheney himself. Of course deficits do matter, but only up to a point and only in context. Who started with a surplus and turned it into a gigantic deficit in the first place?

Obama is going to get himself in a "who'll cut costs more" battle that he will NEVER win since Republicans are always willing and able to put Medicare and SS on the surgeon's table.

I advise President Obama to read or reread Al Gore's book the Assault on Reason and then listen to the speech Al Gore gave on the defense of the role of government on MLK Day a few years ago. I think that was a GREAT American speech and it needs to be read and reviewed as much as JFK's inaugural and MLK's I Have a Dream Speech.

The pivotal rhetorical battle to have with the Republicans is not small vs. large government but effective vs. ineffective government.

If we don't want to plundered and bankrupted by private enterprise, government has to step in and be the buffer. It is not wasteful bureaucracy to ensure that the citizens of the US are not poisoned by the food supply, or cheated of coverage by insurers, or able to spend a reasonable amount on utilities, or be able to attend higher education without signing up for lifelong economic serfdom.

Democrats have done a piss poor job of explaining that "re-distributing" wealth has to do with protecting and preserving the assets of the nation or to demonstrate how the wealth distribution for the past decade and before has been from the bottom upwards and not the top downwards.

[blondeatlast]

1. So true. The R's want to portray themselves as anti-government, but they are really

anti-citizen. You hit upon all of their weak spots.

BIG k/r!