Reply #46: As I recall, not once in the speech does he mention the fact that the Bushes

[JDPriestly]

and Reagan ran up at least 50% of the deficit, and that Bush fought two wars while cutting taxes -- a surefire recipe for a budget deficit.

Please correct me if I am wrong about this. But it appears that Obama is pulling another "looking forward" thing, thus accepting on his shoulders alone the burden of compromising to pay the deficit. The tax cuts for the rich caused the deficit and should be repealed if the deficit is to be reduced.

I just don't understand how Obama can be such a wimp when we need a fighter. This is not the time to compromise on the rights and economic interests of working people.

There is utterly no evidence that the cuts in payroll taxes caused employers to hire additional workers as far as I know. If Obama has that evidence, he should have mentioned it in passing and not just sort of thrown out some hopeful theory about it. I think it could be argued that any increases in employment can be ascribed to other factors. So Obama can't just assert something and expect people to take it as true.

Obama did mention that hedge fund managers and Wall Street folks should pay higher taxes. I liked that part, but it was overshadowed by so many strategic mistakes on Obama's speech. He should have lead with his discussion of tax increases for Wall Street.

He seems to be campaigning for the votes of Republicans in Congress, not for the votes of Democrats out here in the rest of America.

In discussing the Boeing NLRB decision, Obama pointed out that we have to compete with German and can't have the fighting between management and labor. I happen to have written a paper some years ago on German labor law and studied the German shared management system.

I would support Obama if he pointed out that we could have more harmony in our workplaces if we adopted German labor laws that protect workers' rights in the workplace. I would strongly support that.