State of the Union

I listened to the State of the Union Address this evening was very disappointed by what I heard. I heard a lame duck president give a lame duck speech. He hit a few high spots but for the most part just recycled his older speeches. He is right about illegal immigration, until we put in place a mechanism for people to come here and work at those jobs we don't want to do we will never solve the illegal problem. He is also right about the earmark spending projects that find their way into every bill. Either the president gets a line item veto power or he has to start vetoing whole bills. I'd rather he have the line item veto. 

We heard the same old talk about tax cuts. His threat about passing his stimulus plan was, for him, just politics as usual. Reviewing and rebuilding Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac are good on the surface but don't really address the problem. 2 years ago I couldn't afford the new house now I can't get the loan. The problem is the cost of the new house and what is being passed off as the American dream home. What we need is affordable housing not cheap loans to get the 3000-4000 square foot monsters that are being built. 

The most disturbing part of the speech was his talk about the military role in Iraq moving to one of staying in place to assure the Iraqi government's ability to remain in power. What he is doing is placing us in a endless war of attrition for god knows how many years. We need a clear path out of Iraq and diplomacy that insures the Iraqi government can do what it was elected to do. The Iraqi's need to make peace with themselves and their past and try to work together for the future and we need to help them do that with diplomacy not with guns propping up an unpopular dictatorship. 

All the pundits are saying that he didn't ask anything of the American people. How can you ask when you have no plan or idea of what the country is about. That's right Bush  and the people around him don't understand this country at all. All they have done is gather power about themselves and then used it to further their own ends. The Constitution is not upheld by these people but rather it is worked around or totally ignored. They only understand power not the power of ideas and ideals. I doubt that Bush understands what John Kennedy was asking when he said "Ask not what your country can do for you but rather what you can do for your country". All Bush can do is make a lame joke about people who don't mind paying taxes by saying "the IRS accepts both checks and money orders". No George Bush will never ask anything of the American people because he is totally without a clue about the strength, vision and desire of the American people.