When President Obama speaks to Congress in tomorrow night’s State of the Union speech, he’s widely expected to use the opportunity to move to the center, reaching out to Republicans especially in the House who want to cut spending. At the same time, Obama will try to fire up his fellow Democrats in Congress and some Republicans in the middle for a new round of “investment” spending, which will certainly resonate with lawmakers looking to be seen as doing something on jobs and infrastructure — despite the failure of the supposedly jobs-and-infrastructure Porkulus to kick off an economic expansion. The 800-pound gorilla in the Beltway is the spiraling national debt, as Citizens United reminds us with this one-minute pre-SOTU spot:
SOTU speeches are almost always a laundry list of new spending for Presidents, regardless of their party affiliation. That’s been true of Obama, certainly, but was equally true of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, too. It’s one of the reasons why this particular political tradition has grown so tedious. Usually, Congress obliges by spending even more than Presidents request, and for the same reason: self-aggrandizement. That’s the real 800-pound gorilla in the halls of Congress.
The only antidote is public pressure to increase to make sure our newly elected Representatives and Senators know that voters aren’t buying it any longer, and that just as we saw in November, the electorate occasionally outweighs that 800-pound gorilla.
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