I am happy that he wants to cut spending. As long as he does as he says, that is, cut from defense as well as cut out social programs that don't work equally, I can get behind this. I think its surprising that he wants electric cars on the road by 2015, since car manufacturers are notorious for working on cars sometimes as early as five years before the launch date. I think a bit more time would greatly help the industry. (However some car manufacturers are already developing have developed electric alt energy cars, so this may not be as large as a problem as I foresee). I think he's also assuming that a great part of the nation wants to go out and buy a new car in 2015. On that note, I do like that he interjected concrete milestone markers on projects, and I like that some of them span far out into the future - I think I heard one in 2035. Which, considering how short sited a lot of our policies are, is nice to see.
I am happy that he has put our relations with India and China in place. I think that this was not Bush's strong suit by any amount. I'm glad they are starting to like us. To that effect, I'm glad he's stressing new job creation instead of 'retrieving' outsourced jobs. I think that's one of the things that caused a lot of friction between us and countries like India. I also think that his script write is light years ahead of Bush's, even if some of what was being said was cheesy.
I am not happy with the super extreme emphasis he put on science and tech. I am all for strengthening those programs, don't get me wrong. But for an administration that is dealing with high levels of corruption in the corporate world (think, health insurance) I'm surprised he didn't say something along the lines of ethics programs for business schools needs to be strengthened. This has been my soap box for a long time. I am largely disappointed with the lack of emphasis on proper ethics in schools. Sure, all programs offer the 101 course on ethics, (in my case it was called Business Law and Ethics - don't do something illegal just cause its convenient was the underlining theme there), but I am now into upper division and strategic classes. We're supposed to be focusing on blending all functions together - marketing, accounting, finance...but we haven't touched on ethics as much as we should. As I've mentioned in other threads, I think that if ethics/social responsibility was a stronger focus in business programs, business leaders would be more willing to offer benefits without been required by the state. Buuuut that's drifting into another topic. In short, I think Obama hand waved business/small business on a number of occasions. I think he used them as an example of what made America great, but other than a convenient example to appeal to naysayers I didn't hear much in the way of resolutions concerning them. I'm still hesitant to believe that he truly thinks the government is not hindering small business. Afterall, government regulations as well as information is a barrier to entry. Releasing expansive documents that take several days to read let alone interpret could kill a small business. They don't have the luxury to send someone off to read it, nor do they have the luxury to close down while they are figuring it out. So what is really happening is that there is a resurgence of 'part time' employees - employees who by law do not need to have health care provided for them.
Moving on. Pick on me or drop off your thoughts on the address.