Excuses To Do Nothing

What is becoming clear is that tomorrow’s “big” State of the Union speech will be a vacuous exercise in gasbaggery.  Not that they aren’t all that way, but this one is so obvious that even the Beltway Bootlickers are compelled to notice it.

For Obama, Investing in Brighter Futures Remains a Tough Sell

By JOHN HARWOOD, The New York Times

JAN. 26, 2014

As aides draft their 2015 budget plan, their 2014 version shows this bottom line for Mr. Obama’s sixth year in office: Government investments in infrastructure, research and development, and education and training, at 3.3 percent of the nation’s economy, match the level from President George W. Bush’s sixth year in office.

…

“It has not been possible to significantly shift the needle,” said Laura D’Andrea Tyson, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who headed Mr. Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers. “We should be raising those levels, and we’re not.

“I guess the good news,” Ms. Tyson added, “is that the share hasn’t been plummeting.”

Over the last half-century, though, it has plummeted. Spending on what the federal government classifies as investments peaked in 1968 at 6.6 percent of the economy, twice the current proportion.

…

“We’ve been playing on a Reagan playing field – a cut-government, shrink-programs field – since 1981,” (Democratic Senator from New York) Mr. Schumer said in an interview. “It’s all turning around now.”

Yah think?  Really?

Oh, and I’d never use plummeted, plummeted.  How about ‘falling’ idiot?  Buy a damn Thesaurus you cheap bastard.