Assessments of the SOTU (Updated)

Heritage Reaction Roundup "The President must not understand that an economy based on free-enterprise with limited government involvement will, in fact, work for and benefit more than just the wealthy. His administration’s idea of an economy that works involves imposing heavy-handed government regulations and threatening tax increases at every turn. Right now, the country is experiencing the tremendous uncertainty that such policies breed. It is the bad kind of uncertainty, the kind that keeps employers from hiring and entrepreneurs from launching new businesses. It keeps the economy stuck in slow, instead of revving it up. In place of more regulation, higher taxes, and increased government spending, the President should propose to take the country in a new direction in tonight’s speech. A direction that leads to less onerous government regulation, fundamental tax reform, and a government that spends taxpayer dollars responsibly."

Here is just one of numerous assessments contained in this column:

Want to Bring Back Jobs? Avoid Overcriminalization - Joe Luppino-Esposito  "He can start by avoiding the criminalization of American businesses by means of outrageous statutes such as the Lacey Act.  Just ask the workers at the Gibson Guitar plant in Tennessee, who were confronted by armed federal agents because of allegations that they imported wood from India that wasn’t properly finished with Indian labor."....

 So if Obama wants to encourage American jobs, he would do well to stop making it a crime to engage in business here.

WSJ: Obama has done nearly everything he wanted. That's the problem.
"So last night he took credit for the shale gas revolution he had nothing to do with and proposed new policies to "spread the wealth around," as he famously told Joe the Plumber in 2008 before he took the words back."....
"Perhaps this will work if Republicans nominate a standard-bearer who is damaged, or too cautious or guilty to challenge this politics of envy."


UPDATE:  RNC Video: Familiar Rhetoric, Failed Record



This guy grades the SOTU on its punctuation  He's reaching for it here.


Liberal economists agree: Obama agenda will fail