I never watch the State of the Union on television or much of the commentary afterward. The reason is that coverage of the live speech tends to focus on what I’ll call peripherals — how well he does in front of live audiences, for instance, as opposed to the staged Oval office speeches (NBC), George Will’s far-from-impartial commentary on ABC and so on.
The Bush proposals demand more scrutiny — especially his extremely flawed attempt at fixing health care by offering tax breaks that might drive businesses to drop coverage and force the rest of us to go to the market (George Will called that a positive step for the economy); some lukewarm, incremental steps on global warming and the increased use of ethanol (which could drive food costs skyward without addressing the real problem, which is how much we drive).
The healthcare proposal is especially troubling because it uses carrots and sticks — carrots in the form of tax credits for those who have to buy private insurance and sticks in teh form of new taxes on those with good plans. The insurance companies and HMOs who have helped created the crisis get off scot free.
The ethanol proposal seems half-baked, requiring a massive increase in the amount of corn needed to produce the fuel (hence the potential increase in food costs).
I am glad that the president has place increased fuel efficiency on the table, though I wish it were more than the mile a gallon per year he called for.
All in all, the Bush speech — based on my quick reading of the text (I didn’t watch it, instead spending the night drafting out a column on the failure to date of state Democrats to get any kind of real tax reform accomplished) — was about what could be expected from a president whose approval ratings are in the 30s.
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Hank Kalet 