(Cross-posted from The Blog Roundup).
So for me, the highlight of the speech was the Iraqi woman, Safia Taleb al-Suhail, who had just voted in her country's election, giving a peace sign and displaying her ink-stained forefinger. The low point was the sight of Republican Congressmen (none of whom have never had to vote with bullets and bomb fragments whizzing past their heads) holding up their carefully-overstained fingers as a cheap publicity stunt for the cameras.
Tomorrow the papers, pundits and parrot-journalists will be uncritically repeating phrases from Bush's State Of The Union speech verbatim, perhaps quoting lines such as "We must join together to strengthen and save Social Security" (conveniently ignoring the fact that what little detail was contained in the President's speech about his plan for private accounts clearly indicate he will do little or nothing to save anything, let alone Social Security). So reading between the lines and the lies, what did Bush really say?
(more after the break...)
Full Steam Ahead and Damn the Torpedoes! - Not for one microsecond did Bush show any self-reflection about any of his most disastrous policy initiatives of the last four years. In particular, he avoided any mention of the unprecedented (and growing) US deficit. Instead of using the surplus he inherited to bolster Social Security, he has been raiding the trust fund each year to pay for his tax cuts and the hugely expensive and unnecessary war in Iraq. Now, four years later he tells us Social Security is in crisis? Where's the remorse? Where are the mea culpas? Now he wants to
increase the deficit even more (by $2 Trillion over 10 years) to pay for his flimsily-disguised Social Security phaseout scheme. Really, it's not in crisis; compared to our economy,
Social Security is actually doing just fine.
Listen to What I Say, Don't Look at What I Do - Time after time, Bush referred in his speech to laudable programs which would improve life for ordinary Americans; programs for college grants, AIDS victims, clean energy, troubled teens, and so on; programs which in real life he has cut, or even decimated, over the last four years. When will he do just what he says? Perhaps more to the point, when will the media call him on it? The reality is that Bush is following Grover Norquist's strategy of "starving the beast" - racking up huge deficits to justify massive cuts in government programs- and almost nobody in the media is calling him on it.
Reward Wealth, Not Work - By making his huge tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, Bush has not only ensured massive deficits for future generations to repay, he has telegraphed his message that "to those that have shall be given", and to the rest of you, best of luck. What Bush didn't say is that by being unwilling to increase taxes to repay the deficit and fund his Social Security privatization scheme, the only alternative is further cutting government programs and reducing future Social Security benefits. As Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader said tonight:
Too many of the President's economic policies have left Americans and American companies struggling. And after we worked so hard to eliminate the deficit, his policies have added trillions to the debt - in effect, a 'birth tax' of $36,000 on every child that is born.
The Economy is In Deep Trouble - By failing to address the immediate and long term implications of his policies, Bush's mismanagement of the economy threatens to turn the US into a banana republic which can't pay its bills. Expect a run on the dollar, a house price collapse, and rising inflation to be the key legacies of a Bush second term, when the foreigners who are currently largely funding Bush's extravagant and irresponsible spending spree finally decide to serve their own self interest and pull their investments out of the US.
Make no mistake, the next four years will be trying ones for the United States. I sincerely hope that whoever is sworn in as President in January 2008 has a strong stomach and great crisis-management skills - they're going to need them.
- Trendar