There are already countless stories covering what was said at Obama’s news conference, so I am not going to go in to the details of what he said. Instead, I am going to rate what he said against the Modern Whig tenets. I will be grading what he has SAID, not necessarily what he will do. We will have to watch from here on out to see if he follows through with his promises.

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
Why does the first need to be the toughest to grade? On one hand, I hate the bailouts. If our system worked properly, bad companies would fail. On the other hand, I understand that if AIG fails, banks across America will fail and we will be much worse off. So it’s tough to grade President Obama on this aspect because he is trying to clean up a mess that he inherited. However, as a capitalist I don’t like his push to give Geithner unprecedented power. While there have been many bone-headed decisions made at AIG, I still think the employees are better suited to sell what is left and return our taxpayer dollars than the government is. So I give President Obama a C in this respect.

However, President Obama is also spending lots of money investing in energy independence, education, and science. As a disclaimer, I am a scientist. If you are in the business, you already know that the Bush administration did not increase the NIH budget throughout his tenure. Because of inflation, this is essentially cutting spending in the sciences including alternative energy sources. Needless to say, this has caused significant detriment to the sciences and has hindered our ability to be competitive around the globe. While it seems like a lot of money today, President Obama is doing the right thing by investing in these areas. I believe many Modern Whigs will agree as one of our tenets is energy independence. By investing in science and education, we set ourselves up to produce new technologies that are competitive in a global market and will produce new growth and new jobs. This is what will return our economy back to dominance just as the personal computer did in the 1990’s. So, on this aspect, I give Obama an A.

GRADE: B

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
I already ranted about President Obama’s investment in energy independence above, so I’ll keep it short. Since he began his presidential campaign, Obama has been a strong supporter of alternative energies. He realizes that this will produce new jobs for America and also new technology which we can sell to other countries that need more efficient means of energy (think China).

GRADE: A

EDUCATION/SCIENTIFIC ADVANCEMENT
Again, I’ve already spoken about President Obama’s strong support of science and education. I have personally already seen the changes in funding taking place at least at the University level. He mentioned support of stem cell research with ethical guidelines. I support this decision and also agree with his assessment that if it turns out we don’t need to use embryonic stem cells we can eliminate their funding.

GRADE: A

STATES RIGHTS
I couldn’t find anything related to States Rights in this speech. If you noticed something, comment and I’ll add it.

GRADE: N/A

SOCIAL PROGRESSION
Same as above. The economy really dominated this conference so there wasn’t much room for anything else.

GRADE: N/A

VETERANS AFFAIRS
President Obama said the following during the news conference:

I don’t think anybody doubts the extraordinary sacrifices that men and women in uniform have already made. And when they come home, then they have earned the benefits that they receive. And, unfortunately, over the last several years, all too often the V.A. has been under-resourced when it comes to dealing with things like post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury, dealing with some of the backlogs in admission to V.A. hospitals. … So there are a whole host of veterans issues that I think every American wants to see properly funded, and that’s what’s reflected in our budget.

While this seems promising, we will have to wait and see if these plans are followed through. However, as far as the speech goes, President Obama seems to strongly support our veterans. I will do my best to figure out what is outlined in the budget and follow up what he has said.

Grade: A

OVERALL GRADE: A-

You have to give it to the guy. He has a way with words. I agreed with most of what he had to say. He is without a doubt intelligent and hopefully he is smart enough to follow through with his promises. We will follow him and make sure he does and if he doesn’t we will call him out on it. Here is a link to the full video.