Republican governors decide against setting up ObamaCare insurance markets

Fox News  -  True Health Is True Wealth:

Video: Rick Perry on Neil Cavuto… Not Setting up ObamaCare Insurance Markets

Several Republican governors, in what could be their last symbolic stand against ObamaCare, announced Friday that they will not set up a state-based marketplace for selling health insurance.

A total of 20 states have now decided not to implement their own exchanges -- which could also mean increased costs for the federal government.

The governors of Wisconsin and Ohio joined Texas Gov. Rick Perry and others in confirming that they will not establish so-called "health insurance exchanges," which are set to launch in January 2014. Under the federal health care overhaul, these exchanges will act as virtual markets where people and small businesses can shop for private coverage in a regulated environment. Many will also be eligible for government subsidies.

The governors' move does not stop those exchanges from being implemented. Rather, it kicks the project back to the federal government to run with regard to those states. While a number of states, largely those run by Democrats, will establish their own exchanges, Republicans who declined argued that it wasn't worth the cost and resources to set up a marketplace that would be under the thumb of the federal government anyway.

"As long as the federal government has the ability to force unknown mandates and costs upon our citizens, while retaining the sole power in approving what an exchange looks like, the notion of a state exchange is merely an illusion," Perry wrote in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "It would not be fiscally responsible to put hard-working Texans on the financial hook for an unknown amount of money to operate a system under rules that have not even been written."

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said the same, writing in a letter to Sebelius Friday that "no matter which option is chosen, Wisconsin taxpayers will not have meaningful control over the health care policies and services sold to Wisconsin residents." With that in mind, he wrote, the state has decided not to build its own system. Ohio Gov. John Kasich echoed that point of view.

Republican governors have been largely opposed to the health care law anyway. But for months, they were effectively waiting to see if the Supreme Court would overturn it or whether Obama would lose re-election and potentially leave an opening to repeal it. Neither of those things happened.

Walker was among those who stopped implementation last year on the hopes the law would be overturned either by the U.S. Supreme Court or Republicans following the November election.

Thursday evening, the Obama administration responded to a request for more time from Republican governors on the exchange question by granting states a month's extension, until Dec. 14.

A few states have signaled they want to partner with the federal government, as opposed to running it themselves or handing the reins to Washington. Those states would handle consumer issues and oversight of health plans in the exchanges, while the feds do the heavy lifting by enrolling individuals for coverage and determining who's eligible for government assistance. Among these states are Arkansas and North Carolina.

The number of partnership states could grow significantly, since the Obama administration has given states until next February to decide on that option.

Obama's election victory virtually guaranteed the survival of his health care law, which is eventually expected to provide coverage to more than 30 million people through the exchanges and expanded Medicaid programs. It was the final hurdle, after the Supreme Court upheld a legal challenge from 26 states. In the aftermath of the election, some Republican state leaders say it's time to accept the law.

"I don't like it; I would not vote for it; I think it needs to be repealed. But it is the law," said Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, after announcing that his state wants to set up its own exchange. "If you default to the federal government, you forever give the keys to the state's health insurance market to the federal government."

Traditionally, states have regulated the private health insurance market.

But other Republican-led states say they don't have enough information to make a decision at this point and are clamoring for the Obama administration to release major regulations that have been bottled up for months.

"States are struggling with many unanswered questions and are not able to make comprehensive far-reaching decisions prudently," Govs. Bob McDonnell of Virginia and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana wrote Obama earlier this week. They asked for a meeting with the president, as well as a postponement of the original Nov. 16 deadline.

Some of their main concerns are hidden costs of operating the exchanges and the sheer bureaucratic complexity of the new system. The Obama administration has steadfastly maintained it will not postpone the Jan. 1, 2014, launch date for the law's coverage expansion. Open enrollment for exchange plans will begin even sooner, Oct. 1, 2013.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related: 

Rick Perry: 'Another federal power grab'

Perry may not have last say on health care

Medical giant Stryker cuts 1,170 jobs, citing ObamaCare

Technorati Tags: Rick Perry,Republican Governors,ObamaCare,Obamaland,ObamaTax,health insurance exchanges,Bobby Jindal,states rights

GINGRICH UNVEILS 21ST CENTURY CONTRACT WITH AMERICA

DES MOINES, Iowa (The Blaze/AP) — Hoping to revive his flagging bid for the Republican presidential nomination, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is calling for an overhaul of the way Americans pay taxes, buy health care and contribute to the Social Security system.

Gingrich mapped out the 10-point plan, which he’s calling The 21st Century Contract with America, in a speech at a Des Moines insurance company Thursday. Key elements include repealing President Barack Obama’s health care plan, giving taxpayers the option of paying a flat tax and allowing young people to opt out of Social Security.

Gingrich is putting the new Contract with America at the core of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, betting it will set the tone for the campaign discussion going forward.

“This is the essence of, hopefully, the next 10 years,” Gingrich said. “It shows you the direction, I think, the country has to go, it shows you how I think we can get there.”

Gingrich’s floundering presidential bid has fractured what was once a rock star Republican image. Not long ago he was the sought-after intellectual guru of the GOP. Now, all but broke, he’s finding himself fighting for air time – if not respect – at Republican presidential primary debates. Polls have generally put him toward the back of the pack, although he ran third in a recent CNN poll behind Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Gingrich conceded Thursday.

h/t to the Blaze

WHY WE NEED A 21ST CENTURY CONTRAT WITH AMERICA

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

-President Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress, December, 1862

This quote from Abraham Lincoln is appropriate because the crisis we face is deeper and broader than any crisis since the 1860s.

The 2012 election is not a political election in any normal sense of ambitious people competing for power within an accepted framework of values and principles.

It is an historic election in which the outcome will potentially change the nature of America for generations to come.

No simple set of slogans or “jobs programs” or poll driven gimmicks will meet the needs of America in 2012.

Consider the realities of our time.

America is dramatically and frighteningly on the wrong track:

• deep and persistent unemployment;
• a deeper drop in housing prices than in the Great Depression;
• an anti-American energy policy that kills jobs, endangers our national security and sends $400 billion plus overseas every year thus weakening the dollar and the economy;
• a tax, regulatory, and litigation system that is killing American manufacturing and putting our national security at risk as we rely more and more  on foreign countries for manufactured goods;
• enormous government deficits on a scale unimagined and unsustainable;
• Washington bureaucracies that dictate destructive policies and treat us as subjects rather than citizens;
• a regulatory-litigation bureaucratic system which makes it virtually impossible for our government to  be effective or agile or even just competent;
• schools that no longer teach American history and generally fail to prepare young Americans for either citizenship or work (leading to a Nation at Risk, as the Reagan Administration described the effect of our schools 28 years ago and it is worse now);
• increasingly radical judges who impose anti-American values on the American people in a repetition of the British tyrannical judges who were the second most frequently cited complaint of the American colonists;
• a radical elite which has contempt for the American people, sympathy for America’s enemies, and overt hostility to American values and which dominates the universities, the news rooms, and increasingly the bureaucracies and the courts.

Three large facts come from these ten specific challenges to the survival of America as the freest, most prosperous, and safest country in the world:

1. No single, narrow solution can meet our challenges. These problems are so pervasive and so widespread that only a comprehensive strategy can break through and force the changes needed for America’s survival as a free, prosperous, safe country based on the principles of the Founding Fathers.
2. The combined forces of the elites—in the news media, the government employee unions, the bureaucracies, the courts, the academic world, and in public office—will fight bitterly and ruthlessly to protect their world from being changed by the American people.
3. Therefore any election victory in 2012 will be the beginning and not the end of the struggle. It will take eight years or more of relentless, determined, intelligent effort to uproot and change the system of the elites—laws, bureaucracies, courts, schools-- and replace it with laws and systems based on historic American values and policies.

The scale of the challenge and the intensity of the opposition require that we approach a 21^st Century Contract with America with a much more profound and serious strategy than the original 1994 Contract with America.

The 21st Century Contract with America will therefore be much larger than the original, and will consist of four parts.

1. A set of legislative proposals to shift America back to job creation, prosperity, freedom, and safety;
2. A “First Day” project of Executive Orders to be signed on inauguration day to immediately transform the way the executive branch works;
3. A training program for the transition teams and the appointees who will lead the shift back to Constitutional, limited government;
4. A system of citizen involvement to help us sustain grassroots support for change and help implement the change through 2021;

The center of activity for these four components exists at www.newt.org/contract.

The first test of the 21^st Contract has to be its effectiveness. Assuming its implementation as outlined, does the Contract include everything that is required to put America back on the right track.

The second test of the 21^st Century Contract has to be its potential for popular support.

Putting America back on the right track will be an enormous, protracted struggle with entrenched elites. The American people have to decide that the struggle is legitimate and necessary and that they are determined that the elites will be defeated and their laws and systems will be replaced.

We have had seven decisive changes in American history (Founding Fathers, the Federalists, the Jeffersonians, the Jacksonians, the Lincoln Republicans, the Progressives, and the New Deal). Each has involved a deep intense struggle.  In each case it took the will of the American people expressed at the ballot box to impose change on a hostile, entrenched, reactionary elite.  In each case the struggle lasted for years and required flexibility and innovation from the reforming side.

The primary purpose of the 21^st Century Contract with America is to lay out the scale of change that is necessary and give the American people profound reasons to believe that with courageous, systematic effort we can get America back on the right track.

The secondary purpose of the 21^st Century Contract with America is to create a general management guidance so that everyone who wants to know where we are going and what we are trying to achieve will have a clear sense of purpose and definition.

HOW THIS CONTRACT IS DIFFERENT FROM 1994

There are three primary differences between the 21^st Century Contract with America and the original 1994 Contract with America:

1. Since the problems today are much bigger and the institutions have grown even more elitist, the Contract has to be much bigger and more fundamental in the changes it proposes;
2. The 1994 Contract grew out of Reagan’s philosophy and could be presented as a completed document but the 21^st Century Contract is based on Lincoln’s  principle that “As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.” Therefore the new contract has to be a work in progress which will be developed over the next year and finally unveiled in a completed form on September 27, 2012. The other reason for a more participatory, developmental approach is that after the secretly drafted stimulus and the secretly drafted Obamacare the American people are tired of imposed solutions they don’t understand and haven’t helped develop;
3. Because the 21^st Century Contract calls for dramatically broader and deeper change, it requires much more emphasis on implementation and so three of the four areas of the Contract (Executive Orders on the First Day, training for appointees, a citizen based movement to insist on implementation and to help monitor implementation for eight years).

HOW THIS CONTRACT IS SIMILAR TO 1994

There are three primary similarities between the 21^st Century Contract with America and the original 1994 Contract with America:

1. Both contracts are premised on the belief that a successful turnaround in the direction of our country is possible. When I was sworn in as the first Republican Speaker of the House in forty years in January 1995, the Congressional Budget Office projected that over the next decade the cumulative federal budget deficits would total $2.7 trillion. Shortly after I left office in January 1999, CBO projected that over the next decade that federal surpluses would total over $2.2 trillion– a four-year turnaround in the fiscal outlook of the United States of nearly $5 trillion.  A comparable four-year improvement in the U.S fiscal outlook today would total over $8 trillion (as % of GDP).
2. Both contracts are premised on the belief that a successful national turnaround begins with profound policy turnaround. The 1994 Contract focused on balanced budgets, welfare reform, and controlled spending.  The result was 11 million new jobs, four balanced budgets, welfare reform, and paying down of over $400 billion in national debt.
3. Both contracts are premised on the belief that a policy turnaround is only possible when the American people are presented during a political campaign with a clear set of choices -- and persuasive reasons why the country should move in a particular direction -- which they then endorse on Election Day. 

WITH ME AND NOT FOR ME

It is because of the very scale, seriousness, and intensity of the historic mission before the American people that I never ask people to be for me.

When people are for a candidate they vote and then go home expecting the candidate to get the job done.

The American Constitution does not give any leader the ability to impose this much change.

This kind of change only occurs when the American people are fully mobilized and focused on insisting that their elected officials follow through and get the job done.

Furthermore, the American people will have to monitor implementation and help us identify when things aren’t working right. They will also have to help come up with better solutions when the first set sometimes fail to get the job done.

No one person can achieve change on this scale but millions of mobilized citizens can.

Finally, as we enforce the Tenth Amendment and shrink the Washington bureaucracy and return power to the states, citizens will have to rise and fill the gap left by the decline of bureaucracies.

For all these reasons I ask people to be with me for the next eight year in implementing the 21^st Century Contract with America.  Please join me at www.newt.org/contract.

URGENT: Tell your Congressman to vote YES on the 'Cut Cap Balance' Act

Please Take Action: Vote Expected in House Today

I urge you to contact your Representative and ask him to co-sponsor and vote YES on the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011. 

--The bill number is H.R.2560.  (The number of the companion Senate bill is S.1340.) 

--The House is slated to vote on H.R.2560 on Tuesday, July 19, 2011.

--The Cut, Cap, and Balance Act meets the criteria of the Cut, Cap, and Balance Pledge:

1) It substantially cuts spending;

2) It creates enforceable spending caps;

3) It requires congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that includes a spending limitation and a super-majority to raise taxes before the debt ceiling can be raised.

--The debt held by the public has more than doubled in just the past five years. Interest paid on the national debt is expected to more than triple over the next ten years.

--Many economists believe the US faces a Greek-style debt crisis within the next five years if we do not get our fiscal house in order very soon.

--The federal government has hit the $14.292 trillion debt limit set in February 2010. Raising the debt ceiling without significant spending cuts is simply a tax increase on future generations.

--Moody’s Investors Services has said the AAA rating of US government bonds is in jeopardy unless Congress passes “a budget that includes long-term deficit reduction.”

--Standard & Poor's has said it will downgrade US debt if the US doesn't 1) cut spending substantially and 2) REFORM the way it budgets, to control future spending.

--The Cut Cap and Balance Act (CCB) would meet the tests set forth by Moody's and S&P, so we never again face this kind of debt problem. In short, "CCB=AAA."

--The Cut, Cap, and Balance Act is a long-term deficit reduction package that will ensure we get back on the path of fiscal sanity and are not downgraded from our AAA bond rating.

Click here to see FreedomWorks' letter on the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act. 

Click here to see FreedomWorks' Key Vote Notice on the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act.

Please fax, call and email your Congressman and Senator(s) today and tell them to vote for Cut, Cap and Balance

Related:

Michele Bachmann Personalizes Cut, Cap and Balance

Red State:  Cut, Cap and Balance

Jim DeMint’s “Cut, Cap and Balance” Qualifier

The Caucus of House Conservative: Cut, Cap and Balance

Obama Officially Threatens to Veto Republicans’ Cut, Cap and Balance Bill (Before It Even Passes) – So Who Is Really the Obstructionist?

The Blaze: House votes to Repeal Net Neutrality!

I am delighted to see them forging ahead w/promises to repeal. Keep the faith. Posted on the Blaze at 5p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans adamant that the government keep its hands off the Internet passed a bill Friday to repeal federal rules barring Internet service providers from blocking or interfering with traffic on their networks.

Republicans, in voting to repeal rules on “network neutrality” set down by the Federal Communications Commission, said the FCC lacked the authority to promulgate the rules. They disputed the need to intervene in an already open Internet and warned that the rules would stifle investment in broadband systems.

“The FCC power grab would allow it to regulate any interstate communication service on barely more than a whim and without any additional input from Congress,” said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., sponsor of the legislation. The Internet, he added, “is open and innovative thanks to the government’s hands-off approach.”

But in what has become a largely partisan battle, the Democrat-controlled Senate is not expected to go along with the House. Sen. John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said he was “disappointed that House leadership wants to undo the integrity of the FCC’s process and unravel their good work.”

Even if it cleared Congress, the White House has threatened to veto a bill it said puts in doubt whether “the democratic spirit of the Internet will remain intact.”

Rep. Henry Waxman of California, top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said nullifying the FCC rules would “give big phone and cable companies control over what websites Americans can visit, what applications they can run and what devices they can use.”

The vote to pass the bill, mainly along party lines, was 240-179.

The FCC rules were adopted on a 3-2 vote last December after years of debate over the federal role in ensuring a free and open Internet. The FCC’s three Democrats voted in support and its two Republicans opposed.

While generally seen as a compromise between technology companies fearing provider limitations on their access to the Internet and the big phone and cable companies insisting they need flexibility to manage Internet traffic, the rules drew a quick legal challenge from Verizon Communications Inc., which said the FCC had overstepped its authority.

A year ago a federal appeals court also ruled that the FCC exceeded its authority in sanctioning Comcast Corp. for discriminating against online file-sharing traffic Comcast said was clogging its network.

The rules prohibit phone and cable companies from favoring or discriminating against Internet content and services, including online calling services such as Skype and Web video services such as Netflix that could compete with their core operations. They require broadband providers to let subscribers access all legal online content.

They do give providers flexibility to manage data on their systems to deal with network congestion and unwanted traffic as long as they publicly disclose those practices. They do not specifically ban “paid prioritization,” where a provider might charge more for faster transmission of data, but they outlaw “unreasonable network discrimination.”

Wireless carriers are also barred from blocking access to any websites or competing services, but they are given more leeway to manage data traffic because wireless systems have less network bandwidth.

Even supporters acknowledged that the rules are mainly about preserving the status quo of a system that is generally working well.

But absent the rules, said Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., “there would be a major shift in power on the Internet to the broadband providers from the content providers.”

He said there was legitimate fear among nonprofit and religious groups that they would be consigned to a lower tier because they could not pay a higher price for premium service. “So your Web page from Nike might load faster than your Web page from the Catholic Church because, if there was tiered access, who would be more likely to pay for the speed of the access?”

He also cited the actions of autocratic states such as China in blocking Internet content in saying the government must make clear that providers cannot discriminate against customers because of political or philosophical differences.

—

The bill is H.J.Res. 37  -  Online:  Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov

Source: 

• Posted by Whackamole on April 8, 2011 at 5:22pm in Elections, Issues, News, & Politics
• Send Message View Discussions

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/house-votes-to-block-net-neutrality/

Obama’s First State of the Union… Disappointing and Surprisingly Disingenuous and Steadfast

Pres. Obama's State of the Union Address: What Did You Think?

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

Madame Speaker, Vice President Biden, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:

Our Constitution declares that from time to time, the President shall give to Congress information about the state of our union. For two hundred and twenty years, our leaders have fulfilled this duty. They have done so during periods of prosperity and tranquility. And they have done so in the midst of war and depression; at moments of great strife and great struggle.

It's tempting to look back on these moments and assume that our progress was inevitable - that America was always destined to succeed. But when the Union was turned back at Bull Run and the Allies first landed at Omaha Beach, victory was very much in doubt. When the market crashed on Black Tuesday and civil rights marchers were beaten on Bloody Sunday, the future was anything but certain. These were times that tested the courage of our convictions, and the strength of our union. And despite all our divisions and disagreements; our hesitations and our fears; America prevailed because we chose to move forward as one nation, and one people.

Again, we are tested. And again, we must answer history's call.
One year ago, I took office amid two wars, an economy rocked by severe recession, a financial system on the verge of collapse, and a government deeply in debt. Experts from across the political spectrum warned that if we did not act, we might face a second depression. So we acted - immediately and aggressively. And one year later, the worst of the storm has passed.

But the devastation remains. One in ten Americans still cannot find work. Many businesses have shuttered. Home values have declined. Small towns and rural communities have been hit especially hard. For those who had already known poverty, life has become that much harder.

This recession has also compounded the burdens that America's families have been dealing with for decades - the burden of working harder and longer for less; of being unable to save enough to retire or help kids with college.

So I know the anxieties that are out there right now. They're not new. These struggles are the reason I ran for President. These struggles are what I've witnessed for years in places like Elkhart, Indiana and Galesburg, Illinois. I hear about them in the letters that I read each night. The toughest to read are those written by children - asking why they have to move from their home, or when their mom or dad will be able to go back to work.

For these Americans and so many others, change has not come fast enough. Some are frustrated; some are angry. They don't understand why it seems like bad behavior on Wall Street is rewarded but hard work on Main Street isn't; or why Washington has been unable or unwilling to solve any of our problems. They are tired of the partisanship and the shouting and the pettiness. They know we can't afford it. Not now.

So we face big and difficult challenges. And what the American people hope - what they deserve - is for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences; to overcome the numbing weight of our politics. For while the people who sent us here have different backgrounds, different stories and different beliefs, the anxieties they face are the same. The aspirations they hold are shared. A job that pays the bills. A chance to get ahead. Most of all, the ability to give their children a better life.

You know what else they share? They share a stubborn resilience in the face of adversity. After one of the most difficult years in our history, they remain busy building cars and teaching kids; starting businesses and going back to school. They're coaching little league and helping their neighbors. As one woman wrote me, "We are strained but hopeful, struggling but encouraged."
It is because of this spirit - this great decency and great strength - that I have never been more hopeful about America's future than I am tonight. Despite our hardships, our union is strong. We do not give up. We do not quit. We do not allow fear or division to break our spirit. In this new decade, it's time the American people get a government that matches their decency; that embodies their strength.

And tonight, I'd like to talk about how together, we can deliver on that promise.

It begins with our economy.

Our most urgent task upon taking office was to shore up the same banks that helped cause this crisis. It was not easy to do. And if there's one thing that has unified Democrats and Republicans, it's that we all hated the bank bailout. I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal.

But when I ran for President, I promised I wouldn't just do what was popular - I would do what was necessary. And if we had allowed the meltdown of the financial system, unemployment might be double what it is today. More businesses would certainly have closed. More homes would have surely been lost.
So I supported the last administration's efforts to create the financial rescue program. And when we took the program over, we made it more transparent and accountable. As a result, the markets are now stabilized, and we have recovered most of the money we spent on the banks.

To recover the rest, I have proposed a fee on the biggest banks. I know Wall Street isn't keen on this idea, but if these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need.
As we stabilized the financial system, we also took steps to get our economy growing again, save as many jobs as possible, and help Americans who had become unemployed.

That's why we extended or increased unemployment benefits for more than 18 million Americans; made health insurance 65% cheaper for families who get their coverage through COBRA; and passed 25 different tax cuts.

Let me repeat: we cut taxes. We cut taxes for 95% of working families. We cut taxes for small businesses. We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college. As a result, millions of Americans had more to spend on gas, and food, and other necessities, all of which helped businesses keep more workers. And we haven't raised income taxes by a single dime on a single person. Not a single dime.

Because of the steps we took, there are about two million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. 200,000 work in construction and clean energy. 300,000 are teachers and other education workers. Tens of thousands are cops, firefighters, correctional officers, and first responders. And we are on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year.

The plan that has made all of this possible, from the tax cuts to the jobs, is the Recovery Act. That's right - the Recovery Act, also known as the Stimulus Bill. Economists on the left and the right say that this bill has helped saved jobs and avert disaster. But you don't have to take their word for it.

Talk to the small business in Phoenix that will triple its workforce because of the Recovery Act.

Talk to the window manufacturer in Philadelphia who said he used to be skeptical about the Recovery Act, until he had to add two more work shifts just because of the business it created.
Talk to the single teacher raising two kids who was told by her principal in the last week of school that because of the Recovery Act, she wouldn't be laid off after all.

There are stories like this all across America. And after two years of recession, the economy is growing again. Retirement funds have started to gain back some of their value. Businesses are beginning to invest again, and slowly some are starting to hire again. Read the rest of the complete speech HERE.

Obama’s speech was stunning in its arrogance, rhetoric, insults, scolding of Congress and blaming of everyone from the Supreme Court to George W. Bush.

Polled Reactions of Speech:

All words and no action… Talk is cheap but no results.

Speech was a recycle of his campaign.

Sounds good, but nothing behind it!

More of the same.

Lies, lies and more lies…

He takes no responsibility, blames everyone, and can’t top blaming Bush.

Amazingly arrogant…

I have never trusted that guy. He is a socialist with a socialistic agenda, and America just won’t wake up.

The Speech proved that he (Obama) is an arrogant ideologue~

If you don’t follow what is going on the speech sounded great, on the surface, but in reality it was all rhetoric and well written smoke and mirrors. He talked about focusing on jobs, jobs, jobs, but then everything he highlight was anti-job. He blamed everyone but himself, and unlike Clinton, he did not hear the warning shot (heard round the world); Scott Brown’s election. Clinton heard the people after his and Hillary’s socialized medicine push fell apart and moved to the center. Obama arrogantly yet often hidden in innuendos said he was pushing forward with Cap and Trade… renamed, pushing ahead with ObamaCare, and even insulted (interpreted by many as trying to manipulate) the Supreme Court seated in front of him. He also insulted the American people over and over again…

Obama said he would continue working to stop earmarks. In reality he has done nothing to stop earmarks. He talked about cutting spending, but in reality his freeze doesn’t start until after 2011 after he has raised the debt and spent us into oblivion and he and Congress will continue to spend and raise the debt unto 2011, all the while siphoning off funds as they have for the administrations pet projects. And finally Obama had the nerve to tell the American people that the worst of the economic storm was over and that ‘now’ he would be transparent. And let us remember that Obama has already increased spending (in just one year) by between 12% and 17%, depending on what you include. And Obama’s plan only freezes .58% for the next 3-years. (Obama’s Spending Freeze Announcement is Meaningless… And Why)

What Obama did not address was terrorism, the terrorist trial in New York, the bad decisions of the his DHS team over Christmas or the closure (or non-closure) of Gitmo.

The items highlighted in Obama’s speech were more of the same… more government interference; anti-personal freedom and America’s ‘global’ standing as he focused his gaze on his cabinet filled with Progressives, Marxists, and anything but Constitutionalists. Lucky for him they don’t march in the czars at these events: A Comprehensive List of O’s Czars and a brief description of each!

Reaction from both sides of the aisle to Obama’s speech was overall negative.

Frank Luntz Author of What Americans Really Want...Really and professional pollster, polled and in-house group as well as conducted a national poll of reactions to Obama’s State of the Union speech.

Results of Luntz Poll:

Good 8%

Fair 5%

Terrible 86%

GOP State of Union Response: We Can't Afford Dems' Spending

WASHINGTON -- The nation cannot afford the spending Democrats have enacted or the tax increases they propose, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell said Wednesday in the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address.

McDonnell told a cheering crowd of supporters in Richmond, Va., that Democratic policies are resulting in an unsustainable level of debt. He said Americans want affordable health care, but they don't want the government to run it.

"Today, the federal government is simply trying to do too much," McDonnell said. "In the past year, more than 3 million Americans have lost their jobs, yet the Democratic Congress continues deficit spending, adding to the bureaucracy, and increasing the national debt on our children and grandchildren." Read more ...

ALSO: Text of GOP Response to State of the Union

'Not True': Alito Fires Back After Obama Jabs Supreme Court

Can this be considered the equivalent of a Supreme Court heckle? Close to an hour into his address tonight President Obama called out the Supreme Court’s recent decision to remove all limits on what corporations can spend on an election. And he did it to their faces.

“With all due deference to separation of powers, last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that corrects some of these problems.”
SNAP. The Supreme Court justices sit directly below the President and traditionally do not respond to anything the president says during his speech. Not this time. Obama’s remarks were clearly too much for Justice Alito, who could be seen rather emphatically shaking his head.

Yawn: Obama Puts Reid to Sleep

Harry Reid Yawns During Obama's State Of The Union

It is full speed ahead my fellow Americans… Cap and Trade; ObamaCare on the Dem’s terms; slight of hand economics; Amnesty; a jobs bill that will cost us money and won’t create jobs; indirect tax hikes… so Obama can say he isn’t raising taxes; continued attacks on personal freedom and the Constitution; promotion of fringe groups and the normalizing of Islam in our society while attacking Christians, Jews and American Traditions and the promotion of Globalism, the Progressive Green Agenda and World Government (through the United Nations) over Americans and American Sovereignty. It is Obama’s Progressive Agenda and although he threw the GOP and the American People a few bones, he backed and hinted at everyone of his beliefs in his speech and never really pivoted toward the center.

We are being had by a slick salesman. The question here is are the American People our Founding Fathers believed in and left their dream to? Or are we the idiots that Joe Klein of the Times and Obama’s cabinet and czars believe that we are???

Obama said in his speech, “One of the best anti-poverty programs is a world-class education!”, and interesting comment from the head of an administration that cancelled the voucher program in DC for primarily under-privileged black children. And when you hear stories like this past week of the re-writing of textbooks, including the suggestions of eliminating the mention of: Christmas, Thomas Payne, the religion of the Founding Fathers and their stand on God, etc and a government takeover of student loans… who can and will ultimately use that to direct people toward professions the government wants and then use enrollment in Obama Youth to payback those loans, you need to step back and think twice! (See: The Dumbing Down of America Series)

Remember: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”, and those that steal freedom are always slick charismatic talkers!

Related:

VIDEOS: State of the Union Highlights

AP Fact Check: State of Union vs. Reality

Barack Obama is actually pulling a David Copperfield with this spending freeze

Can’t We At Least Get a Toaster?