When I watched President Bush’s State of the Union Address, I could not help but talk back to the television set. The President made several assertions without facts, without details and even without credibility.
The first questionable statement took place early in the speech:
“This country has many challenges. We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses and other generations.”
Did he mean to suggest that other presidents (read: Bill Clinton) passed along problems to him? That may be true, but his statement omits the fact that President Clinton left a budget surplus for President Bush, which Bush has quickly turned into deficits.
“I am proposing that all the income tax reductions set for 2004 and 2006 be made permanent and effective this year.”
Perhaps unwittingly, the President stumbled onto the primary cause of our deficits. He takes after President Reagan, who gave us years of record deficits with his tax cuts.
“The best way to address the deficit and move toward a balanced budget is to encourage economic growth and to show some spending discipline in Washington, D.C. We must work together to fund only our most important priorities.”
This idea of spending discipline sounds good. Until one considers the laundry list of spending that Bush proposed a little while later:
“400 billion dollars over the next decade to... strengthen Medicare.”
“1.2 billion dollars in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles.”
“15 billion dollars over the next five years, including nearly ten billion dollars in new money, to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean”
When added to the President’s $674 billion plan to stimulate the economy, Bush now proposes over $1 trillion of new spending and tax cuts! And he wants to make his tax cuts permanent!
Bush on terrorism:
“All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let me put it this way. They are no longer a problem for the United States and our friends and allies.”
When he implied that the United States had killed terrorists, it was the only time he ad-libbed in his speeches. I believe that the only time he talks coherently without notes is when he talks about killing people.
Bush on Iraq:
“Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean peninsula, and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq.”
North Korea has a nuclear program and has chased away inspectors. I don’t see how Iraq is more dangerous. I wonder what the President would say if North Korea had oil!
“Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead his utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world.”
If Hussein had such “utter” contempt, then why did he allow the inspectors back into Iraq to begin with? No inspector has used such language to describe his attitude, which makes Bush’s comment inappropriate.
Bush then cited a United Nations report from four years ago and “U.S. intelligence” to back up assertions that Iraq has forbidden munitions. His lack of specificity regarding his sources made his comments sound like rhetoric geared to persuade the public to accept war. It isn’t good enough for something that will involve destruction and the loss of lives.
“Some have said we must not act [in Iraq] until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?”
There are many groups of people who despise the United States and who could carry out a terrorist act against us. Some have, as evidenced by September 11 and the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Iraq has not. And while intentions are not stated, they may be inferred through conduct, or lack of it. Iraq has not been connected to any recent acts of terrorism. Furthermore, we should not give Iraq any reason to attack us, which is what a strike on them would do.
And this line at the end of his speech:
“Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation.”
Thanks to the laws Bush has persuaded Congress to pass, we are less free than ever. The government can now, among other things, round people up whom they deem to be “enemy combatants” and detain them without trial, the government can more easily wiretap our private telephone conversations and a new government office called “Information Awareness” can spy on our e-mails and credit card purchases.
Bush’s
speech ignored reality both at home and overseas.
By offering us tax cuts and heavy government
spending, he fails to ask us for the sacrifices we must
make to be economically and nationally secure.
By moving rapidly toward a showdown with Iraq, he
disregards the more pressing problems in favor of
securing oil and dominating the world.
Some day, the chickens will come home to roost,
right on the Bush.