state of the union

More on liberty from Ryan's reply to the President's 2011 SOTU. more »

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More Ryan's follies from his answer to the President's 2011 SOTU. These are about that old Republican hypocritical favorite, “small government.”

”So I’d like to share with you the principles that guide us. more »

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Here's the next group of Ryan's follies from his answer to the President's 2011 SOTU.

On bureaucracy and innovation:

”Depending on bureaucracy to foster innovation, competitiveness, and wise consumer choices has never worked – and it won’t work now.”

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Like a lot of former Obama voters, I've had my issues with the President. Sure, it helped when he sang that Al Green song at the Apollo Theater last week. (Good job, Mr. President! Good pitch and an appropriately understated delivery.)

But in a time of uncertainty people are looking for certitude. In a time of great battles people are looking for strength. They don't just need to hear the words when they listen to their leaders. They need to feel the music.

The State of the Union Address is scheduled for this Tuesday night. The President can go a lot further toward winning over voters who are disappointed, doubtful, or just unenthusiastic, if he chooses an issue that's vitally important to them and offers a clear, strong and unequivocal defense.

Social Security is the ideal issue. It's one of many, according to polls, where both parties are out of step with voters. After seeing their savings, pension plans, and housing values destroyed, people are frightened about their retirement security. They don't hear anybody in Washington offering to protect their benefits.

And to borrow a phrase from Rev. Al, they're tired of being alone. more »

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In my last two posts I reviewed the deficit reduction aspects of Paul Ryan's Republican response to the SOTU. But Ryan also placed considerable emphasis on the idea of “limited government” in his response. In this post, I want to evaluate what he had to say on this theme. more »

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Not the wars. Not greenhouse gasses. Not even the deficit. The issue most important to Americans is jobs.

Despite that, jobs failed to make an appearance in the State of the Union address.

The talk was all about business. Business was doing better. Business needed taxpayers to help pay for research and innovation. Business will get government help to eliminate pesky regulations. more »

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Here's Part Two of my textual analysis of the deficit reduction portion of Paul Ryan's Republican response to the SOTU.

Then the President and his party made matters even worse, by creating a new open-ended health care entitlement. more »

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Many of my recent posts have focused on fairy tales I thought the President would tell in the SOTU and also those that he did tell. more »

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In my last post, I scored the SOTU on the 7 Fairy Tales I discussed previously, and concluded that the President was subscribing to at most two of them, and that he accepted the deficit reduction framing of the Republicans as a basis for negotiat more »

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