Column for Feb. 4, 2010

Just about every year, one of my friends ends up asking me if I am going to see "the show". The show he refers to is The State of the Union Speech each January. Often times my answer is no, since I often prefer to read the transcript later rather than utter bad language aimed at the television. My friend is right. It is a show, not an address actually containing the state of our Union.

According to the United States Constitution Article II Section III, (referring to the President) "He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." I look each year for a complying, constitutional message. Each time I fail at this endeavor.

The US Constitution does not require a speech. It does not require a specified time for the address to happen. Nor does it state in what form it must be delivered. There are some things the Constitution does indeed leave open to interpretation, this being one of them. Every President since Woodrow Wilson has grandstanded his views, policies, and wish lists before Congress.

Well, I got suckered into watching this year's address on television right up until the time I could not take it any more. I found myself shouting at the TV, "You lying sack of [censored]!" fairly often and finally just turned the show off. For you Obama supporters, don't get too upset. I often said the same about Presidents Bush and Clinton.

Not only do most Presidents use this address as a way of feeding their need to be an attention whore, they totally disregard the entire raison d'être of the speech to begin with. They pimp their personal agenda items rather than actually telling us what the state of our Union truly is. I want to hear real facts and figures about our budget, our military readiness, our national security level, and the like. Instead we get ideas about what programs to begin, expand, and what constitutional principles we should violate as a nation, almost all of which are not "necessary and expedient".

What amazed me this year is that as usual, the blame for everything wrong was put on George W. Bush. I am so tired of this tactic. Sure, I was no fan of Bush, but the things whined about in this speech can certainly not be blamed on Bush and were abject hyperbole. For instance, "One year ago, I took office amid two wars, an economy rocked by severe recession, a financial system on the verge of collapse, and a government deeply in debt. Experts from across the political spectrum warned that if we did not act, we might face a second depression. So we acted – immediately and aggressively. And one year later, the worst of the storm has passed."

No, we were not on a verge of financial collapse…at least not until Obama signed a so-called stimulus bill into law. We are more deeply in debt under his administration in just one year than we were for the previous 220 years of our present form of government.

Today has to be the kicker to the speech for me, though. Obama spent much of his speech touting the need to reduce deficits, freezing government spending, eliminating earmark spending, eliminating programs that are unaffordable or don't work, and tax cuts. Then today (Monday) I read the headline "Obama unveils 2011 budget with $3.83T in spending" $3.83 trillion dollars in one budget? That is a full trillion dollars more than the Bush Administration 2007 budget and $800 billion more than the 2008 budget.

Where are the reductions in deficits coming from? Where are the tax cuts going to be? If we are going to eliminate failed or unaffordable programs, why is Obama calling for a national health care system and increasing the budget $800 billion over previous year? This is incompatible with his speech, which was in reality a wish list for more government spending.

I have the full text of the speech in front of me as well as an outline compiled of the points he made for quicker reference. Quite honestly, I am disturbed by the contents of the speech just like I tend to be each and every year. I am disturbed that we have yet to have an actual statement of the Union's state of being. I am disturbed by the blatant disparity between the President's words and his actions. I am just glad that I resisted the urge to throw something at my nice, new television.