State of the Union Summary

Purportedly, I have good "summarizing" skills. So I went ahead and highlighted what I felt were the key points of Bush's State of the Union speech for my readers who didn't have time to listen to the hour long speech but still wanted to know what the basics of it were. Anything in italics is personal commentary, feel free to ignore it.

The text of the speech can be found here:

State of the Union 2007

The State of the Union speech

1. Balance the Federal Budget
1. Eliminate deficit in the next five years
2. Stop the process of “earmarking” (Earmarking is a process of attaching
   addendums to Bills after they have been approved).
3. Find “some way” to fix Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare
2. Reauthorize the (horrible, misguided and ineffective) No Child Left Behind Act
3. Reform Federal Health Insurance Subsidies
1. Adjust tax structure for families and singles with Health Insurance (first 15k
   or 7.5k non-taxable respectively)
2. Provide monies to states who give free health care
3. Expand Health Savings Accounts, help Small Businesses, reduce costs and medical
   errors (how would the government do this?), and encourage price
   transparency.
4. Medical Liability Reform
4. Immigration
1. Double the size of the border patrol + new infrastructure/technology (bah,
   don’t believe it’s necessary)
2. Establish a temporary worker program so that foreigners can cross the border into
   the US to work. (It’s interesting to me, because most people who are
   worried about illegal immigration are worried that foreigners will “take
   all of our jobs” – sort of like a reverse fear of outsourcing. Bush is
   saying he wants to make this easier – he wants to increase border
   security to protect us from…yeah, you guessed it. Terrorists. Also to
   stop criminals and drug dealers. I’m not claiming that these are not
   important, but I don’t believe our current method is effective – at
   stopping the problems it hopes to stop or at dealing with the concerns of
   most Americans when it comes to illegal border crossing).
3. Somehow resolve the status of current immigrants to the country (legal or
   no?)
4. Reform immigration laws to encourage the American “melting pot”
5. Reduce dependence on foreign oil
1. Increase development and distribution of alternative energy sources. I will
   give Bush credit here – instead of instantly talking about how he wants
   to increase internal oil drilling he instead discusses the importance of
   developing alternative energy sources. There is no mention of government
   funding of any kind of research.
2. Reduce gasoline usage by 20% in the US in the next 10 years (increase fuel
   efficiency and quintuple current mandatory renewable fuel goals).
3. Double the capacity (heh capacity, not the amount of oil) of our current
   oil reserves.
6. Homeland Security
1. “Yet one question has surely been settled: that to win the war on terror we
   must take the fight to the enemy.” Bush makes this statement when
   discussing the current debates about whether our current course is
   correct. It’s obviously wrong and conveys a false dichotomy: either we
   fight on their territory or on ours. I am not convinced (and I don’t
   believe I’m alone in thinking so) that a fight must take place at all.
2. It’s important for America to stay on the offensive. It is not easy for
   terrorists after 9/11. He lists a bunch of examples of failed terrorist
   plots.
3. General anti-Al Qaeda anti-Hezbollah rhetoric. In short: “Al Qaeda are bad and
   evil. They want to rule the world in a totalitarian manner and will kill
   anyone and everyone to do it.” Fairly long, and also incriminates Iran
   significantly (as Iran houses the Hezbollah). I think it’s interesting
   to revisit the article I posted recently about the world opinion on US
   foreign policy. It’s widely believed that the US is making itself less
   and not more safe – this doesn’t make it true of course, but it does give
   a more impartial picture of how other countries view the US’ actions.
4. It’s important for the US to support democratic leaders in other countries so
   that it’s possible for them to lead their countries in such a way that
   the terrorists cannot exist inside of it.
5. We will stay in Iraq until our original goals are met.
6. We are sending an additional 20,000 troops, the majority going to Baghdad.
   4,000 marines are also being sent (with orders to “find and clear out”
   the terrorists. Ha, clear out).
7. If we leave early, the terrorists win.
8. Bush moves to establish an advisory council on the War on Terror (we all
   know how much Bush listens to advisory councils).
9. Increase the size of the Army/Marines by 92,000 in the next five years. Also,
   create a Civilian Reserve Corps which consists of civilians with special
   skills to serve on missions abroad.
7. Foreign Policy
1. To whom much is given, much is needed (ha, it’s the Rand Communist pay
   scale!).
2. Continue the fight against HIV/AIDS, especially in Africa.
3. Asks for $1.2b over five years in funds to combat malaria in Africa.
4. Continue to fund the Millennium Challenge Account (haven’t heard of it.
   Apparently, it’s exists to support countries who need help and have democratic
   governments).

For those of you aching for satire, this is kind of funny. Highlights:

"First of all, I lied about the reasons for war in Iraq. It never had anything to do with WMD, or with 9/11...and I apologize for misleading you."

"I'm sorry I [authorized the NSA to wiretap phone calls], and that I did it without telling anybody, and that I've been abusing my presidential power...and I'm sorry I broke the law doing it."

"I know torture is wrong...it was a mistake, and I also apologize to anyone who was tortured because of me. Especially the innocent guys, which we now know was pretty much all of them."