So I Said Take my Debt...Please!

Old Obama can give a good speech, can't he? My highlight was him bitch slapping the Supreme Court...that was great. He said "with all due deference to separation of powers"...and I was wondering if he'd pull an Andrew Jackson and finish that phrase with "ok, so what are you gonna do about it?" But, he didn't (I don't REALLY want Presidents to ignore court rulings; I'm just a little biased toward the branches of government that I study).

My other hightlight was student loan forgiveness! Please, Holy God in whom I sometimes partially believe, please make them follow through with that! I already knew something about the public/nonprofit forgiveness in 10 years, but I hadn't heard of the 20 year lifetime thing. Maybe they'll keep amping that up, so by the time i'm ready to pay back, I'll be free!!!!!!!

Still, it was just a speech. A few empirical studies have shown that the State of the Union does have an agenda setting effect, but I'm skeptical if that's as true these days, with our fragmented media. Obama and others talk a good game about bipartisanship, but what they fail to realize is that our current political gridlock is institutional and ideological. You combine the existence of the filibuster with a less "clubby" senate and more ideologically polarized parties, and you get gridlock. None of those factors go away by complaining about them. Unfortunately, I don't forsee a time when Obama's gonna have the excess political capital to blow on tackling procedural reform (though I did like his lobbyist registering idea, if for no other reason than that they'll be easier for academics to study). He's still got banking and financial reform and environmental legislation to push through. I don't see those fights going much smoother than this.