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Heritage
Foundation
Morning
Bell: Obama’s Second Inaugural Address, Translated
By Amy Payne
January 22, 2013
Members
of Congress—who are about to debate raising the debt
ceiling tomorrow—should have paid attention yesterday. The President
was very
clear that he sees no urgency about reducing the debt and cutting the
deficit.
In fact, in his second inaugural address, President Barack Obama was
honest
about his intentions to grow government in order to remake our country
along his
progressive vision.
To
sell his agenda, the President borrowed imagery and terminology
from America’s first principles. But he twisted the American founding
idea of
“We the people” into the liberal “It takes a village.”
His
rhetoric on the issues only thinly disguised his true meaning.
Let’s translate some of his key points.
Obama
on “we the people”: “For the American people can no more
meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American
soldiers could
have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias.
No
single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to
equip
our children for the future. Or build the roads and networks and
research labs
that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.”
Translation:
In case you didn’t hear me the first time, you didn’t
build that.
He
may have surrounded these words with lip service to the
Constitution and America’s promise of freedom, but the President
revisited his
core message here: It takes a taxpayer-subsidized village to build
things.
According to his philosophy, entrepreneurs don’t create jobs—the
government
does.
Obama
on the fiscal crisis: “We, the people, understand that our
country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing
many barely
make it….We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health
care and
the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must
choose
between caring for the generation that built this country and investing
in the
generation that will build its future.”
Translation:
I will continue to push for more tax increases
instead of reforming Medicare and Social Security.
On
this point, the President followed up his promise that he will
not negotiate on the debt ceiling by digging in his heels on taxes and
entitlement programs. The “hard choices” he refers to on health care
and the
deficit are more tax increases—because he “reject[s] the belief” that
entitlements must be reformed if they are going to stay around for the
next
generation.
The
debt limit showdown continues this week: The House will vote
tomorrow on a plan that would extend the debt ceiling for three months
while
forcing Congress—specifically, the Senate—to pass a budget. If they do
not pass
a budget by April 15 under this plan, Members of Congress would stop
getting
paid. If House Republicans so much as blink, the President and his
allies will
steamroll them.
Read
the rest of the article at Heritage
Foundation
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