Dryvetyme Onlyne

At approximately 8:10pm CST, President Bush began his final State of the Union Address. If you’re interested, here’s the transcript of the speech. And if you’re still interested, here’s the Democratic response to the President’s speech.

Predictably, the speech covered the same, safe, comfortable themes that have populated all of the prior State of the Union Addresses in the Bush Presidency — taxation policies to stimulate a flagging economy and staying the course with the “War on Terror.” The speech was broken down into two primary sections: for the first half of the speech, he discussed domestic issues, while in the second half, he moved onto discussing Iraq, Afghanistan, and the continued need to stay the course.

Key Domestic Policy Initiatives Included:
Passing a “Stimulus Package” to stave off the impending (already here?) recession
Making his earlier tax cuts permanent
Ending/curtailing the earmarking of special interest funds
Passing legislation to help people hit hardest by the weakened housing market
Expand consumer choice, not government control (regarding health care)
Reaffirm No Child Left Behind Act & create Pell Grants For Kids
Create trade agreements with Columbia (to weaken Hugo Chavez & Evo Morales), Panama, and South Korea
Trust entrepreneurs to develop clean energy technology to reduce the US dependence on foreign oil
Fund new coal technology until the clean energy comes about, as well as look into emissions-free nuclear power
Fund new medical research that seeks new treatments that respect moral boundaries (i.e. stop stem cell research)
Reform Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid
Hire more Border Patrol agents to further secure the borders
Seek a lawful way for immigrants to move to the US to lawfully support the economy

Key Foreign Policy Initiatives Included:
Stay on the Offensive
Keep up the Pressure
Deliver Justice
Add 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan
Troops will be slowly coming home
Congress must fully fund troops
Troops move from leading to training to oversight
20,000 troops should be coming home in 2008
The troop draw-down must be approached with patience
Any further draw-down depends upon conditions on the ground in Iraq and what the generals recommend
Iraqi government must seek reconciliation between Sunni, Shia, & Kurds
Define a Palestinian state in 2008
Demand from the government of Iran that they stop supporting regional terrorists
Demand from the government of Iran that they be more open with their nuclear plans
US must protect interests in the Middle East
Take every lawful opportunity to gather intelligence that will protect Americans
Reject genocide in Darfur
Defeat famine
Defeat diseases like malaria & HIV/AIDS
Reform the benefits system(s) for current veterans and veterans who will be coming home from the Middle East

What did I think about the whole shindig? Honestly, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before from either President Bush or any of his cabinet members in any of their speeches during Bush’s entire tenure in office. Nothing substantive was discussed, as evinced by the fact that Bush never laid out any clear policies for reforming Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid, coming up with these clean energy technologies, lawfully transitioning immigrants into citizens, or a host of other issues he tossed into the air. Simply put, he had nothing to say, because no one is really listening to him — his own party fails to talk about him on the campaign trail. And that is the most damning indictment of all.