Domestic Policy

Misstating the Union

February 2, 2006 ⋅  E-Mail Article ⋅  Print Article ⋅ Post a comment

While most people think the President did a swell job during last night’s State of the Union address, I think the President left out a few key issues that should have been addressed:

1. Democracy.
   The president talked about the new democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan and said the number of democracies in the world is growing. Although, Bush failed to mention that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan yet qualify as democracies according to the group he got his statistics from (Freedom House). In fact due to the state of security in those countries, they are not even considered to be “free”. Iraq was given a “not free” rating while Afghanistan did slightly better with a “partly free” rating.
2. Executive Power.
   Bush likes to make it sound like he’s trying to reduce government spending by calling on Congress to pass a line-item veto, failing to mention that the Supreme Court struck-down the line-item veto, finding it unconstitutional in 1998. The bill President Bush is proposing would again attempt to amend the constitution, but probably will not go very far…and don’t get me started about the domestic spying terrorist surveillance program
3. Economy.
   The President tried painting a rosy picture of the economy touting 4.6 million jobs were created in the past 2-1/2 years. That sounds great…as long as you don’t tell us about the 2.6 million people that lost their jobs during Bush’s first 2-1/2 years in office. Add those two together and America only had a net gain of just a little more than 2 million jobs since Bush took office. Still think the economy is doing well? Ask a Ford (or GM, Delphi, etc.) employee for additional insight…
4. Federal Deficit.
   Trying to get a grip on the every increasing federal deficit, Bush spoke of cutting spending…but only “non-security discretionary spending.” The “non-security discretionary spending” he is talking about accounts for only 16% or the budget. What Bush doesn’t tell you is total federal spending has increased 42 percent since he took office.
5. Energy.
   And my personal favorite…Bush set a “goal” of cutting dependence on Middle Eastern oil. What people fail to realize (and Bush fails to mention) is that US dependence on imported oil and petroleum products increased substantially during his first five years in office, reaching 60 per cent of consumption last year. How is that for cutting “dependence” on oil?

What is your perception of the State of the Union? Should the President have focused more on domestic issues? Tell us what you think! Don’t be shy…

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