State of the Union

OK, so very few people on either side of the aisle (or those of us who care about the country more than political sides) had high expectations of Bush for his last State of the Union. Amazingly, even with expectations lower than his approval rating, he still shows why he's become synonymous with "miserable failure".

His biggest theme seemed to be railing on Congress for all the problems that have accumulated during his reign. Let's start with his "war on earmarks".

While Republicans had complete control of both Houses of Congress and the White House, they went on a non-stop spending spree, shattering all previous high water marks for cost of pork-barrel projects, sheer number of earmarks, and spending money that was not even put into the budget. Now that the Democrats have a very slim majority in Congress, he wants earmarks, formerly his favorite way to funnel money to cronies, cut. Bush’s warning to Congress all sounded good on the surface, but with regard to the upcoming economic stimulus package, here’s what the evil “pork barrel earmarks” are that he’s talking about:

• Rebates to senior citizens that have social security as their only income


• Help for those who rely on food stamps


• Poor families with high heating bills


• A small extension of unemployment benefits to those who need it most

Here are the things that he is demanding must go into the package to help everyday Americans:

• Tacking on a permanent extension of tax reductions for the wealthiest folk


• $50B corporate welfare

Keep in mind that behind his "nice on the surface words", he is threatening to do significant harm to the country by vetoing any economic help if any of his items aren't included, or any of the first list are included. Hold no illusions - he is outright threatening to veto the entire concept of an economic stimulus package if Congress wants to help seniors on social security or those who cannot find a job. Nice, huh.

Sadly, it doesn't even stop there. He had a lot of nice language about stopping pork-barrel politics via executive order. However, let's look at the facts of his actions. His “earmarks” remark is referring to an executive order that will only apply to the next president, not himself. So, he’s whining that the pork that only he wanted (first 6 years) or that the sides compromised on (this past year) is now so horrible that he would veto any attempts to fight the coming recession. However, he blessed all of those earmarks, plus any that will come while he still holds office – but wants to pass responsibility for economic discipline to the next administration. Nice.
Here's a CNN article for reference.


Now let's move on to his favorite topic, the war against Iraq.

Of course, he’s still equating Iraq to 9/11 by pounding home the point over and over again that al Qaeda is in Iraq – completely ignoring that their true power is in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As a reminder – al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11, Iraq had NOTHING to do with it. When we invaded Afghanistan, we had Osama bin Laden pinned down, and the military on the ground was pulled back, and he escaped with his fighters into Pakistan.


My favorite part – he said he was directly speaking to the brave men and women in uniform (happy stuff, blah blah). We WILL get you everything you need to do your jobs.

Uh, that would have been nice 7 years ago. It’s been about 5 years since it was leaked that they have to resort to scavenging Iraqi dumps for scrap metal to armor the vehicles. Still waiting for the up-armoring, dubya. Where’s the money been going?



So, how are his actions matching up with his words of wanting peace? Well, on 1/29/08, Bush finally stopped selling F14 spare parts to Iran. Of course, this is not a direct deal between Bush’s friends in the defense industry and Iran – because that is illegal (such as Halliburton’s direct dealings). They use a third party to handle the transactions, and this has been well known for Bush’s entire presidency. However, the sale of US fighter jet parts to Iran has been going on for 7 years with his blessings. Arming the very country he is sabre-rattling against, trying to stoke a new war against new people before he leaves office.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi people are trying to unravel the bush doctrine that has harmed them so badly, in a real attempt to heal a country from the ravages of both Saddam and dubya. Here's a BBC article.

Hey, here's something he didn't talk about - his failure to help all the people harmed by hurricane Katrina. Besides blocking repairs of firehouses, here's the latest on the toxic trailers in another CNN article.