Obama’s Failed State

By Stephen Lendman

Obama’s State of the Union address didn’t surprise. It reflected rogue leadership. It was beginning-to-end demagogic boilerplate.

Defending the indefensible took center stage. Rhetoric substituted for progressive policies. Bombast assured business as usual.

Priorities include waging war on humanity, force-fed austerity, ignoring public needs, institutionalizing a repressive police state apparatus, and cracking down hard on non-believers.

Doing so assures growing despotism, lawlessness, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, and deprivation.

Obama’s address targeted Medicare. He called “medical care for the aged….the biggest cause of the nation’s longterm debt.”

He lied. Military spending, imperial wars, Wall Street bailouts, other corporate handouts, and tax cuts for the rich and business bear full responsibility.

Falsely blaming Medicare for Washington’s malfeasance reveals bipartisan rogue leadership. It’s indicative of what’s to come.

In 2009, Obama prioritized cutting healthcare costs and “restoring fiscal discipline.” He made doing so the top “pillars” of his agenda, saying:

We’ve “kicked this can down the road. We are now at the end of the road and are not in a position to kick it any further.”

“We have to signal seriousness in this by making sure some of the hard decisions are made under my watch, not someone else’s.”

“The big problem is Medicare.” Its cost is “unsustainable.”

“Let’s not kid ourselves and suggest that we can solve this problem by trimming a few earmarks.”

The “biggest cost drivers in our budget are entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, all of which get more and more expensive every year.”

“If we want to get serious about fiscal discipline – and I do – we will have to get serious about entitlement reform.”

Medicare and Social Security aren’t entitlements. They’re insurance programs. They’re funded by worker/employer payroll tax deductions. They’re contractual federal obligations to eligible recipients who qualify.

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http://www.globalresearch.ca/obamas-failed-state/5322840