The State of the Union

Think Progress has lots of stuff on Bush's State of the Union last night. They've found many things disputing his facts and even have an annotated video of the speech.

Many people commented about the history beginning of "Madam Speaker". Think Progress remembered all the dire warnings Republicans (including Bush) said before the election about Pelosi becoming speaker.

Overall I didn't find much in the speech to like. Having read the previous speeches recently, this sounded like a rerun. Bush's claims about halving the deficit is laughable. Let's remember he inherited a surplus and started a war and his tax cuts are the biggest contributor to the deficit. The bit on earmarks is correct but misses the point that it all happened under his watch for 6 years and he did nothing about it, not vetoing one budget bill that the Republicans managed to pass. Also his line on Social Security was completely vague and therefore useless since they won't agree on how to fix things.

Think Progress apparently had nothing to say about No Child Left Behind. But I think Bush's statements are overrated. I don't think our math and science numbers are good compared to other industrialized nations. And Bush said "We must increase funds for students who struggle" but that's not a call to fund the program which is what the biggest complaint about it.

I actually think health care is the biggest domestic issue in America. The more I think about it the more I think there should be some government run mechanism for health insurance. I think it's crazy that employers pay for a health insurance and think it would help our companies compete with other nations that have nationalized health insurance if they didn't have to burden these skyrocketing costs. It also would be more helpful to people to not have to worry about their health insurance when they change or lose jobs. I think there's a lot to learn from the innovations at the VA recently.

Bush's proposed tax deduction for health insurance seems mostly likely to benefit those who already have health insurance. For those that don't $4,500 in tax savings for a family of 4 (and why do I doubt that number) won't do much to get coverage which for a family is more like $1,000+ per month. And I read that 50% of uninsured adults pay no federal taxes, this doesn't incent them at all.

Bush's "Affordable Choice" grants sound good to help states be innovative, but according to Think Progress it will just redirect funds from hospitals to cover people without insurance. That may or may not balance out, I'm not sure but I have my suspicions. The Health Saving Accounts seem to have their doubters as well.

The immigration stuff, yeah yeah. I really don't care much about the issue but if you're going to reform it, do it comprehensively. The Congress didn't seem too enthusiastic either.

The environment stuff was very similar to things he said in previous years. Mostly non-specific. Sure technology is good, but Think Progress points out that he failed to deliver on his 2006 engergy promises I'm not sure what "mandatory Fuels Standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017" means and "modernize fuel economy standards for cars" is good but also non-specific. Would he really approve raising the minimum fuel efficiency of cars say 10 mpg? But he also asked to double the "capacity of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve". How would he do that? Buying more middle east oil? Is this how he's placating his Saudi friends? Oh and there was nothing specific on fighting global warming. Wimp.

The bit on judges was lame, anticipating fights I suspose, but he already caved on some very conservative nominations since the Democrats took over. He mentioned nothing about judicial pay, I wonder what John Roberts thought of that.

Now we get to terrorism. There was a reluctant standing ovation on the "we must take the fight to the enemy" probably because we disagree on who the enemy is. Some of us thinks it's al Qaeda, Bush thinks it's sectarian violence in Iraq. As far as the surge he's said nothing new tonight and I'm glad to see that Congress isn't buying it. Bush did say that his administration was using "every lawful and proper tool of intelligence, diplomacy, law enforcement, and military action to do our duty" I'm really curious what diplomatic tools he's using.

Bush also said "Yet it would not be like us to leave our promises unkept, our friends abandoned, and our own security at risk." Unfortunately as it relates to the middle east that has been our policy. It's one of the reasons we had such problems getting tribal leaders to help us at first, they didn't believe we'd follow through. But I'm not sure that's a reason we should be staying. Bush wants "to establish a special advisory council on the war on terror, made up of leaders in Congress from both political parties." The Democrats think there is already a structure in place to do that.

Bush said "We have a diplomatic strategy that is rallying the world to join in the fight against extremism." That seems laughable. Our "coalition of the willing was never impressive and is now gone. And the rest of the world thinks we're war mongers.

This year was the first time Bush mentioned Darfur in a State of the Union speech, how is that possible? "And we will continue to speak out for the cause of freedom in places like Cuba, Belarus, and Burma — and continue to awaken the conscience of the world to save the people of Darfur." And what does that mean? We haven't done squat about Darfur.

Bush also spoke about continuing the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa and his Millennium Challenge Accounts. Think Progress reports his AIDS policy is making things worse since it's not helping with condom education and merely teaches abstinance and that Millennium Challenge program is almost bankrupt.

He ended pointing out various guests and their individual accomplishments, which just seemed out of place for a State of the Union speech. What was conspicously absent was any mention of Hurricane Katrina and what we could or should be doing to help the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast recover. Maybe we could give Bush to Africa or the Middle East, he seems to care more about them.