State of the Union Address

[GuidoHunter]

Okay, this forum has gone long enough without another political thread. I aim to change that.

Questions, comments, concerns with the State of the Union Address? I was able to catch most of it myself, but don't have much time to comment (at the time). Hopefully we can get some ideological discussion going here.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[Tasselfoot]

Would you be able to summarize the wonderful words of our illustrious president W? I was busy watching Duke v Wake on ESPN.

That and I could care less what he drones on for an hour about. Although I wouldn't mind reading an overview.

Did he mention the bombing of terrorists in the Middle East and the new Iraqi regime?

Key points:
-Economy's on the rise.
-We need to increase educational grants.
-We need to cut frivolous spendings. He made a quote I liked, "Tax dollars should be spent wisely, or not at all."
-We need to enact tort reform and stop frivolous lawsuits.
-Iraqi elections went well, hooray for us and for the Iraqis.
-The Iraqi people want to take the security burden upon themselves, and we're working for that.
-Social security needs reform.
-Young Americans need to be able to invest in private retirement accounts.
-We're doing well in Iraq.
-We need to set partisan politics aside and start working together to solve problems. Listen to all good ideas.

Please do not post your general opinions on Bush in this thread. Confine your thoughts to tonight's speech.

[GuidoHunter]

Some more points I remember:

-We need to reform the tax code.
-Starting private investment accounts as an alternative to social security (anyone want to clear that up if some part of my description is wrong?)
-NOT set a date for troop removal in Iraq.
-Enact border security legislation, but give temporary passes for people who want to come to America to work for their family back home.
-He spoke briefly on his support for the marriage amendment and his opposition to the culturing of fetuses for stem cell research

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[Tasselfoot]

Marriage amendment? As in, support for preventing homos from marrying or support for letting them get legal benefits like a hetero couple. It seems very fishy that he would support a pro-homo anything.

Tort reform. THANK GOD. We seriously need big time consequences for false legal actions and a change to what someone is liable for.

Somehow I doubt Bush will stop spending tax dollars, especially with his hardon for war and our current deployment to the Middle East. At least it helps the economy. Pulling funds out of circulation and hoarding them will hurt (as I'm sure Q can tell us).

Good, good. Social Security is in need of serious reform. Too many baby boomers getting ready to retire are going to take up the entire fund leaving nothing for those of us in the next generation.

It does appear that the Iraqi election went well, relatively. Lets hope we can stop talking about this already. War goes on every god damn day, and our country as been apart of as many as any other country (1760s, 1776, 1812, 1860s, 1890s, 1910s, 1940s, 1960s, 1970s, 1990s, now). I don't get the huge deal that has been placed on our need for new found patriotism and support of the war. Its been going on for a year now, it is not new news.

I hate politics, not a fan of Bush, but from Chardish's bullet point review of his speech, maybe things won't be too bad. That is, if he actually follows through with what he says he is going to do. State of the Unions are notoriously full of horn-pulling and whistle-blowing. Lots of noise, but it sure as hell ain't music.

[eyespewgreekfire]

I think everything he said was very nice, but he definatly was very vague. He proposed nothing new. Social Security needs "private accounts." How will this work? Will it have 20 to 30 percent of revenue spent on administration like the model in Chile thatit is based on? Will benefits fall? When? He left alot of questions there. Anothing thing that bothered me was his promise to cut the deficit in half. As a gigantic deficit creator, I highly doubt it will decrease at all, much less be cut in half. What is "responsible spending" as he says it? What does he want to cut? He proposed NOTHING specific for how to cut spending. I think this speach is a reaction to how Clinton got shreaded about his medical reform plan because he was so specific. He said nothing new. It was all political banter, which I think is his best choice, because he is not good at complex speaches. His speaking, for W standards, was supurb, but he lacked content. Now that he has public speach fixed, it would be nice if he added content to his simple speaches.

[DracIV]

Bush did, in fact, say several specific things that no one has mentioned so far.

-The major one needs a bit of background: Right now, it is a common and proven fact that Syria currently holds the terrorist HQ for the attacks in Iraq. During his speech, Bush sent an ultimatum to Syria, warning them that if they dont start helping us clean out that HQ, we will do it by force (not invasion; political force).
-Bush declared that he is going to push Nuclear Energy for the next four years. He's going get the Nevada Waste Dump project started and try to remove the halt on nuclear power plant construction that Pres. Carter put in.
-Bush actually was specific about cost cutting. He told us is in the process of cutting 150 programs from the federal budget right now. He didn't waste time listing them. He is also looking to streamline everything (i.e. no superflous programs, simpler tax code, etc.). He renewed his promise to cut the deficit in half by 2009.
-Bush specifically made sure to leave the Social Security thing open because he wants to hammer it out in in the legislative process. It's too vital to let one man decide it all; we have a legislative process for this purpose.

[GuidoHunter]

Tass, the marriage amendment defining federally-recognized unions as between a man and a woman.

And YES, we need tort reform. For any reason why, just look at Mississippi, where no sane doctor will practice because of obscene medical malpractice suits.

Eyespew, aside from what Drac said, the State of the Union address isn't a campaign speech, but rather a message to the American people about what's going on and what they can expect.

Also, remember that if he can't cut the deficit as much as he wants, it's usually congress's fault, not his. The forty-four (or whatever it is around there) democrats have already said that they're united to block the privatization of Social Security if need be.

After everything that was said, I'm quite optimistic about his second term. First, Iraq's much less of a problem now, and second, he said a lot of things that I like. And since republicans have even more of a majority this time around, I hope to see a lot of his ideas go through.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[The_Q]

Key points:
-Economy's on the rise.
-We need to increase educational grants.
-We need to enact tort reform and stop frivolous lawsuits.

Ok, so the economy is on the rise. It has been since about midway through the Clinton administration. It's been on a steady rise since our last depression. It's no news that the economy has been on the rise. Why did people think it was down the shitter? We were in recession. It's a cycle, guys. Like a wave that goes from a high crest to a low crest. A recession is the low crest of the wave. The entire wave would be pointed in a positive slope to show how the economy is developing.

No, we need to take education grants and shove them down the lou. What we need are more privatized schools. In almost every case greater competition provides better results for the consumer. Let's look at the new Netscape vs. Netzero commercial where they say that Netscape gives "Web Accelerator" for free. This is an example of competition. They add the price of Web Accelerator to their regular plan so that more people would choose it over Netzero. Mmmm, competition.

What we need to do is educate people that lawsuits are not the end of the ordeal. It's just the beginning. If a train company runs a track near a corn field and the sparks from the train wheels on the tracks caught the corn on fire who is at fault? Who should be made to move? That is the job of the court. It is the people's job to decide who moves. If the train company makes 20 dollars a day for running trains and the farmer makes 10 dollars a day for growing corn who should move. Depending on the court decision it could go 2 ways. The farmer could pay the railroad 5 dollars a day to move (having 5 dollars a day is better than 0 from burnt crops) instead of having to move himself. The railroad could pay the farmer 5-10 dollars a day to move if they lose (10-15 bucks is better than 0. 5-10 bucks is better than 0 for the farmer).

That's all for now.

Q