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“I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal.” - President Barack Obama, first State of the Union address

I’m watching the State of the Union a second time. Take that as an indication that I remain solidly in U-6 status, because no one working full time could schedule such a commitment. Seriously — if the President is a metonymic icon of the country, then this must be a moment of national loquacity.

The disregard for brevity would be a bit less galling were the speech not littered with the same rhetorical devices to which we’ve grown accustomed (e.g. “I got a letter from” [nondescript personage]; “…like the people in” [nondescript municipality]; [invocation][historical event]) or so strongly influenced by conservative talking points.

Sure, there were a few shots at actual Congressional Republicans. There was defense of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (i.e. stimulus bill). There was a jab at the obstructionist party’s refusal to applaud tax cuts. There was the crack about “those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change.” If you were watching in HD, then you may have noticed the President looking satirically orange in mockery of Senate Minority Leader John Boehner. Such things are all well and good.

It’s the idiocy that loses me. Much of that comes in the proposals to help small businesses create jobs.

The idea of funneling repaid TARP monies through community banks to give “small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat,” for instance, strikes me as ill-conceived. Haven’t we gotten over the credit crisis hump? I mean, I may bad-mouth efficient market proponents, but I’m pretty confident that credit-worthy enterprises are receiving the money for which they can reasonably vouch from their local lending institutions. Those that need more money to “stay afloat,” as the President says, are bad credit risks. If you want to subsidize untenable and arguably tenable small businesses, then don’t call it a loan program. Give it a catchy name like the Paying Off the Upper Middle Class Act (POUMCA).

Another portion of the President’s plan to create jobs includes a raft of tax breaks. There will be a “small business tax credit” for businesses that hire new workers OR raise wages, an end to “capital gains taxes on small business investment,” and a tax incentive for all businesses to make capital investments. Setting aside the arguments that this is supply-side silliness, small business and capital investments ought be undertaken on their own merits, and — wait, did I mention POUMCA’s catchy name? — any raft of tax cuts would still seem to undermine the President’s proposal to fight deficit expenditures by enacting a 3-year spending freeze at 2011 levels.

We used to have a dim-witted Texan who cut taxes while keeping spending at or above its previous rate. If we wanted someone like that, then we could just tack up “help wanted” fliers at AA meetings. Instead, we have years-long campaigns culminating in national elections. You do the math.

Okay, Okay — maybe I’m being too hard on POUMCA. It’s just that tax cuts crease me. Raising taxes back to their proper levels once the crisis is over will be difficult if not impossible, and we’re going to need a whole lot of revenue if we’re ever going to put in place the kind of social safety net necessary to facilitate an adequately liquid labor market. I wonder how difficult it is to gain legal alien status in Denmark.

By the way, Mr. President, when you argue for the nation to “seek new markets aggressively, just as our competitors are,” you’re embodying the Marxian explanation of capitalist imperialism. That’s just a heads up.

Also, as long as we’re talking about things that need to happen to facilitate labor market liquidity, let’s stop treating home ownership as a sacred cow. If the government can really get banks to refinance questionable mortgages in a tenable manner, then that’s great. Otherwise, stop artificially inflating the housing market with things like the first-time home buyer tax credit. As many nifty things as that does relating to imaginary paper wealth, it also keeps air in the system. Let the housing market find its natural equilibrium, already.

All right, that’s enough criticism. I’ve got something like 300 words left, and I’ll try to use them positively.

The proposal that the government directly administer student loans is sound. It should’ve passed long ago. The same goes for capping the percentage of earnings a person will be billed for student loans, forgiving those loans roundabouts middle age, and forgiving them for public service. Even the $10k college tuition tax credit rubs me the right way, and you know I’m pro-tax. Facilitating extensive post-secondary education is egalitarian, meritocratic, and a righteous investment in human resources.

We didn’t get any good cap-and-trade sales pitches, but there was some push for green jobs and the like. Obama also mailed in a few lines about the importance of health care reform. It’s not that I don’t believe him; it’s just too mealy-mouthed. Say something to the effect of “The train’s leaving the station, and you [epithet]s will want to be on board.”

Did I mention the yada yada hope yada yada change part? Two years ago, it was moving. Last year, it was motivational. That was when Obama was giving Obama speeches. You might remember them as being relatively brief, measurably stirring, and short on specifics. As many others have mentioned, this State of the Union was more of a Clinton speech. It ran long, there were some good punch lines, and sometimes the excrement and ingratiation piled high enough that a person struggled to maintain attention.

Addendum: How creepy was the rebuttal from Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia? As if Gov. Bob hadn’t already gained the imprimatur of secession via his shadow State of the Union set in the capital of the Confederacy, he had to maneuver his speech even further toward anarchy after Obama had been so Republican-ish (circa 1990, maybe). After the constant invocations of the Founders, Gov. Bob’s line about “equality of opportunity” made a person wonder whether he’s aware that equality includes many more classes of people than it did when those landowning white men decided to have their slaves build a capital in Virginia’s swamp land.

“Depending on when the Vikings collapse this year, I could be interested in seeing some playoff football that Sunday.” - me, email from Jan. 2, 2010
[Note: This is not even the most recent of the 9 threads returned by a Gmail search of the term "Vikings collapse."]

As a first generation Minnesotan-American, I took a concerted interest in Sunday night’s NFC Championship game. The Vikings were at the Saints, the George Halas Trophy was in the SuperDome, and I was planted on the couch wearing a worn Helga hat and what might otherwise be described as Purple garb. Through 59:41 seconds, it was a hard-fought contest to see which team could more effectively choke. Would haplessness or fecklessness carry the day? One could only wonder. Then, as the Vikings were coming out of huddle to mount one last play before kicking the game-winning field goal, my cable went out.

The impact of this event cannot be overstated.

It’s not as though a coax had wiggled its way out of the cable box. This was complete radio silence. Not a TV in the house was working, and neither was the Comcastic internet connection. Because of the latter fact, I was forced to contact the owner of my residence to learn the Comcast number to call. He, of course, was in Vegas for the weekend, and I was trying to decipher text-message updates while fumbling to find a static-ridden AM radio broadcast of the game. When Comcast finally transferred me to a local operator, she asked the status of the game. Apparently my reason for calling had escaped her. Then I was informed that I’d been victim of an outage. This was the most helpful information Comcast could provide, and it was of no help whatsoever. It was, in fact, the information I’d called to report.

It’s a good thing the government didn’t get in the way of that success.

Admittedly, I’m going through a bit of a Socialist phase. It strikes me as somewhat nonsensical that people should fear for their ability to meet the basic economic needs of civilized individuals when the U.S. has — by some margin — the highest per capita GDP of any non-oil-producing country larger than a postage stamp. There’s also the question of how much more efficiently our national human resources could be allocated, were a strong social safety net to allow individuals more geographic and employment mobility, and the matter of guaranteeing effective education beyond high school to maximize the utility of those human resources. Perhaps I forgot to assert that a flattened income distribution would, on aggregate, increase discretionary spending.

Yes, I am of the opinion that a soft cap on earnings should be enacted at a sensibly high point. If you’re slated to be paid 500,000 or a million dollars in a calendar year, then it’s safe to assume your earnings and personal safety are a product of the societal infrastructure made manifest by the government. At that point, a more or less confiscatory tax can be levied to raise revenue for sustaining and improving said infrastructure. I’m crazy like that.

There are, however, clusters of intransigent Reaganites still dotting our fine countryside. These are people apt to believe one or more of the following as gospel truth: Taxes are a meritless burden; All government is waste; Private enterprise is intrinsically superior to public works. To these people, I suggest the example of Comcast. My water doesn’t cut out when I’m in the shower. My toilet isn’t blocked by sewage from the main line. My cable provider, however, successfully prevented me from seeing what were, by my subjective valuation, probably the most important few minutes of television to be broadcast this year. A public utility could not have failed more egregiously.

Beyond the reactionary minority is the much louder minority voicing wholesale opposition to civilian government. Into this group would fall Ron Paul’s supporters and Fox News’ Tea Party people. What follows is a non-exhaustive set of questions I pose to them:

• From whence do you receive your goods? Commerce requires interstate transit. Presently, this commences by way of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, FAA-regulated air traffic, and a railway system built through collusion between government policy and robber barons. When you speak against the federal government as an institution, you advocate a very localized form of isolationism.
• Do you like not being shot? I know many of you own and/or stockpile firearms, but you have to sleep sometime. Much of law enforcement is local, but local funding is often supplemented — through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, for instance — by federal grants. One might also consider the deterrent force manifest by the specter of federal enforcement agencies.
• Do you perceive a dearth of ignorance? Education is another popular outlet for federal grants, and much higher education is funded through such federal programs as Stafford loans and Pell grants. Additionally, the defense department hands out research grants to universities faster than a wily Spanish-speaker can cross the border.
• Would you prefer higher sales or property taxes? At the moment, most states are constitutionally disallowed from running deficits. The implication, then, is that any time commerce or property assessments declined, the state would have to increase tax rates to raise necessary revenue. Necessitating insufficiently counter-cyclical fiscal policy should strike you as a bad idea. Of course, there’s no way real estate would ever lose value.

“When this sort of thing happens, it’s usually a good idea to take a break and do a lap around the casino. Maybe play a few hands of blackjack, if you’re into that sort of thing. But suppose that, when you do this, every friend that you bump into has just taken a bad beat too! They’re every bit as panicked as you are!” - Nate Silver

We’re only on day 22 of 2010, and it already looks safe to assume this year will hold many more responses than actual actions. If only the Tea Party Convention weren’t quickly becoming an implosion of failure drizzled in ineptitude sauce, we could declare this the Year of the Reactionary. Absent the aid of a trained soothsayer, one wonders where that places us in the political zodiac.

Before delving into the enormity of our federal legislative situation, let’s observe a few specific reactions.

On The Real World: D.C., the black guy reacted jealously when the vaguely bisexual girl danced with someone else. When they got home, the two roommates engaged in some flirtatious wrestling. When the vaguely bisexual girl found herself without other recourse, she spit in the black guy’s face. He reacted with hostility before later attempting to revisit their previous copulatory dalliance.

Elsewhere in the house, the girl raised in a cult showed interest in the bisexual Evangelical guy. When he preferred to bring another man home from the club, she reacted by claiming she had, like, never been attracted to him. This was followed by an enduring campaign of passive aggression.

Maybe I’m just getting older, but this Real World cast strikes me as the most childlike yet. After 20-some odd seasons, the producers may have decided to migrate their content from the sphere of human zoology to something more closely resembling kiddie porn. Perhaps the epidemic of strong reactions is contagious.

Setting aside the amount of puerile or otherwise banal content involved, there are lessons to be learned from the narcissists of tomorrow. Chief among them might be that one ought temper romantic expectations when dealing with someone who has yet to commit to a sexual orientation. I don’t mean to propound incrementalism, but a person generally narrows his or her search criteria before preparing for monogamy. Next there might be something about giving berth to the intrinsically self-righteous. Then, of course, comes the truism that not all fluid exchanges are equal. One hopes not all of this is news to the reader.

Taking a step closer to the actual real world, we might pause to recognize that the SuperBowl teams will be decided this Sunday. Although reluctant to hold forth on the outcomes of those games, I can predict the fan bases’ reactions with some level of confidence.

As a longtime Vikings fan, I will don my Helga hat and tie-dyed Horny Fan Club t-shirt to watch the late game. While I would quite enjoy seeing a Purple championship before I die, the primary question in my mind will be whether the franchise can delay its annual collapse for another 2 weeks. Moderated expectations are part of a Minnesotan mentality; it’s the only way to cope with such an excess of winter. Of course, the franchise has never failed to collapse at some point, so this particular instance may simply be an example of learning from past experience.

Should the Vikings defeat the Saints, however, I would expect the high hopes of New Orleans natives to be dashed. The home of Endymion might remain racked by grief for just a few minutes longer than it takes to reach Bourbon Street and chug a hurricane.

Lucas Oil Stadium will host the AFC championship. Its unique architecture leaves the building more closely resembling a pristine mid-century automobile factory than a modern coliseum. I mean that in the most complimentary sense. What has yet to be seen is the number of Jets fans who will arrive prepared with “We Wuz Robbed!” placards to display as the game nears its conclusion.

Regardless of whether or not Jim Caldwell becomes no less than the third coach to lead one of Tony Dungy’s teams to the SuperBowl (see also: Dungy, Tony; Gruden, John), one expects the people of Indiana to react with all the excitement of Evan Bayh at a meeting of the Senate Subcommittee on National Parks. Hoosier facial expressions generally range from placid to sanguine.

As long as we’re speaking of subcommittees and whatnot, we might as well address this week’s special election in Massachusetts. Gauging by the amount of broadcast coverage it’s received, that state’s election of a Republican Senator interests us more the impending collisions of gridiron gladiators.

Please notice that I just spelled Massachusetts. This is a task Martha Coakley’s campaign failed to accomplish. Dwelling on that whimsical failure helps distract from her larger failure to retain some semblance of functional government. This description of the situation may seem dramatic, but it also seems a rational extrapolation from the Republicans’ agenda of obstruction. With a 41st Senate seat, their capacity to impede legislation will be limited only by their ability to maintain party discipline.

On the other hand, there are few turds that cannot be polished. As the good folks at 538 note, Brown is theoretically a liberal-ish Republican with an electoral interest in appeasing the generally liberal Massachusetts electorate. On any occasion he might be made to see reason, he’ll chip into the aforementioned party discipline while providing cover for other arguably rational Republican Senators such as Olympia Snowe. Of course, it has yet to be seen whether Senator-elect Scott Brown bears the intellectual resources necessary to see reason.

Let’s not forget that this is a man whose previous apex of accomplishment had been fathering an American Idol also-ran. Perhaps that’s a credential for being a “real American.” If so, then I’d like to investigate the paperwork necessary for Northward migration. Hello, Toronto.

Speaking of places with more or less socialized health insurance systems, we might notice that the state that just crushed the potential for inter-chamber legislative negotiations on the topic would be affected less by federal health care/insurance reform than any other. Thanks to Republican luminary Mitt Romney — among others — Massachusetts already enjoys the highest level of health insurance participation in the land. Somehow the fact that Bay Staters have little to gain from federal legislation has eluded the bulk of professional pundits, many of whom have postulated Brown’s election to be a product of push back against the pending health insurance bills. While no more productive, it’s certainly a bit more satisfying to simply berate Massachusetts’ electorate for preventing the rest of us from gaining the level of labor mobility they already enjoy.

Okay, that’s all for now. If you need me, I’ll be tethered to the far end of social mobility by the fear of catastrophic illness or injury.

Update: Although the story remains largely under the radar, Nate Silver has joined the bandwagon noticing that federal health care reform wouldn’t do a whole lot for Massachusetts’ voters. It’s still more a cart than a wagon, but the stochastic argument can’t hurt.