A Pre-State of the Union Quandary – Do I Have to Watch?

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Today I am attempting to be productive in laundry, dishes and schooling, so I am consciously ignoring both the television and the radio. The TV is easy to bypass, but the urge to listen to some good talk or surf the internet while conducting some great research has nearly overwhelmed me half a dozen times. Since this is a rather newsy day every now and then I sit down and steal a moment to record my thoughts, and maintain some semblance of sanity. This is one of those now moments.

Floating around in the nebulous space of my mind are strings of words. These words are moving back and forth and joining together to form thoughts and ideas for articles and stories ranging from children and the discussion of methane gas to politics and the many bags of wind that will be expelled tonight.

Yes, tonight is the fated State of the Union Address, and just thinking about the items on this administration’s agenda make me feel like my head is going to explode.

Some topics to watch for in tonight’s address:

*The Economy

(three-year spending freeze, jobs bill)

*The immigration system

(Obama plans to issue a call for a comprehensive overhaul)

*Regulation of carbon emissions

(keeping the global warming debate alive)

*Wall Street regulations

*The recent Supreme Court decision – Campaign Finance Reform

*The ailing Healthcare Bill

*Foreign Affairs and Terrorist threats

*Government reform

(kind of scary considering the administration’s Socialist leanings)

Leading up to this speech I’ve heard rumors of a three-year spending freeze that would reduce the budget by less than one percent as well as repeated admonitions for the American people to tighten their belts, and I wonder, “How ignorant does our government think we are?”

Much of the country came to the conclusion that government spending should not only be frozen but should have been cut early last year. Still, our voices have been largely ignored as many of our representatives turned a deaf ear toward us. We were promised transparency and a seat at the table, but we have experienced the same old partisan politics while doors have been closed in our faces. Additionally we have stood witness to the bankrupting of America while billions of dollars were committed to supposed stimulus.

The L.A. Times reported on House Minority Leader John Boehner’s response to Obama’s proposed spending freeze:

Given President Obama’s leading role in Washington’s unprecedented spending binge, the American people are right to be skeptical. . . . Middle-class families and small-business owners have been struggling to do more with less, while Democrats in Washington pile up red ink as far as the eye can see.

He’s right. The Democrats have come late to this party and only after they’ve picked the pockets of the American people. While I applaud any effort to reduce wasteful and inefficient spending, there are some things here that give me pause. First, is the pass given to entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare, etc.) this signals a refusal to address waste found in these areas. Second, it doesn’t rule out another stimulus, and third is this statement from Rob Nabors, the deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget:

This is not an across-the-board cut; it’s not a freeze on every agency or every program. Not every agency that is subject to the freeze would be frozen, he said. Important initiatives in the areas of education and energy research would be preserved.

What areas? What initiatives? Bills like the $787 billion stimulus package and even the Senate’s proposed Healthcare Bill are full of earmarks that provide me with little faith in this Administration’s judgment as to which programs are necessary and which are not.

That said I have little interest in what the President has to say tonight because thus far he has proven untrustworthy. We have seen the President and heard him speak on these issues many times over. We have learned who his allies and advisors are, and we are discovering that he will take long self-serving strides to see his progressive policies enacted. People define themselves through their words, their actions, and their associations. In my estimation these all work together to reveal that President Obama is not a man of his word.

I suppose I will listen to the State of the Union, and I will try to keep an open mind. It is, however, unfortunate that I am not optimistic about the proposals being offered by this administration. I would like to enter this evening with hope and anticipation, but what I am likely to receive, as I join the country in watching this spectacle, is a large expensive bag of hot air.