Given that the presidential election focused on the economic challenges facing the country, we thought it would be helpful to highlight how President Obama addressed them in his second inaugural speech.
Jobs: The word “jobs” was mentioned three times, but none of them had to do with a plan to create them.
- “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.”
- “We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us, at any time, may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm.”
- “We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries—we must claim its promise.”
Growing the economy: The president tells us, “an economic recovery has begun,” but never explains how he will finish it.
Deficit spending and the federal debt: Given four years of $1 trillion-plus deficits and a $16.4 trillion federal debt the president only said, “We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit.”
There are no suggestions on how he will make those hard choices. He didn’t in his first term, and there is little reason in this speech to think he will in the second.
Federal entitlement programs: As to these economic cost drivers Obama could only say, “The commitments we make to each other—through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security—these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us.”
So not only does he not plan to reform entitlements, he is preparing for an “us-against-them” fight on any effort to do so.
In these mega-forums, a president focuses on those issues that are most important to him. Obama said little about the country’s economic challenges, but a lot about how government can create a better and more equal society. He told us more in what he didn’t say than what he did.