President George Walker Bush gave his annual address to the nation this evening. This was his first address to a Congress which is not controlled by his Republican party (I emphasize his Republican party because that party has not been the traditional fiscally responsible, small-government-wanting, party that freed the slaves, but is instead being hijacked by far right religious zealots to push for a pro-Catholic government). It was on every channel of news significance; on a side note, Fox and CBS' coverage was a second or so behind CNN/NBC's coverage). For a transcript of the speech, see CNN.
The prez started out congratulating the Democrats on their majority winnings last year, and made sure to point out the fact that he was the first president to say "Madam Speaker" (much to the groans of old-white men everywhere, I'm sure).
Bush wasted no time and jumped right into speaking on the economy of the nation. He mentioned the minimum wage hike. He stated that we are "n the 41st month of uninterrupted job growth -- in a recovery that has created 7.2 million new jobs" and that unemployment and inflation were both low. So far so good for Mr. Bush. Continuing in the economic realm, Bush proposed to eliminate the Budge Deficit within five years. Finally, a little fiscal responsibility from what has traditionally been an administration with deficit spending seemingly at the forefront of economic policy. Bush also proposed to work on Social Security and Medicare in order to save "the children" (read my generation) from huge taxes, huge deficits, huge cuts in quality of service, plague, pestilence, and Godzilla. But in all seriousness, it's about freaking time. Finally, it sounds like Bush is a true Republican.
Bush's next topic was education, and he brought up his controversial program of No Child Left Behind. He claimed that this program was working, and wanted Congress to renew the program. Bush also briefly mentioned the following, "giving families with children stuck in failing schools the right to choose something better." I personally was caught off guard by this comment. Was Bush advocating the voucher program, or just re-emphasizing the ability for parents to change their children's school? NCLB has been strongly opposed by teachers and their unions as unfair, under-funded and unrealistic. There seems to be no clear evidence of NCLB's true effectivness.
Bush then proceeded to propose two initiatives regarding health care. Prefacing these two initiatives was the comment that "when it comes to health care, government has an obligation to care for the elderly, the disabled, and poor children. We will meet those responsibilities. For all other Americans, private health insurance is the best way to meet their needs." So, if you're not old, crippled, or a poor kid, you're on your own for health care essentially. His initiatives were (1) to help people afford their own health care by giving tax credits and (2) to give local governments more funds to help support its citizens who are uninsured. Personally, I think we should nationalize our health system like in Canada, Cuba, or many other Industrialized nations. The one thing holding many people back from this idea is, by my guess, homosexuals and others who are infected with the AIDs virus. If you nationalize health care, the government starts to pick up the check for all of those expensive AIDs treatments. That will hurt the pocketbook for certain (or fo' sho' for all you kids out there).
Our president then brought up the subject of immigration, but I decided to pay attention to something else. I'm guessing though that his policy is walls, fences, tags, etc.
More to come tomorrow on President Bush's speech.
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