More of the Same from Bush - Time for Change

George Wenschhof

It was hard last night to listen to sixty minutes of President George W. Bush speaking in regard to the state of the union. It was painfully obvious that he still just doesn't get it.

He started off with how the U.S. economy is strong but we are going through a period where a economic stimulus plan he proposed will help all Americans while he also called on congress to make his tax cuts to the wealthy permanent.

Unfortunately, the working man and woman will not notice a significant difference in their lives when they receive a check for $700.00 in July or August. Rising energy costs, lack of affordable health care and loss of jobs to U.S. corporations operating overseas continue to be a drag on most American families.

He doesn't understand that expanding consumer choice for health care, as he put it last night, does not make it affordable to the many who are not insured today.

He continued to tout the benefits of his administration's education initiative entitled "No Child Left behind" while high ranking educators across the country shout out for it to be scrapped. The President continued his call for funding (300m) to go to private and church operated schools to teach those children where the public education system is failing. How about if we concentrate on making our public education system the best in the world?

When it came to international trade agreements he tied support to countries that are of strategic importance to the United States and called for approvals of agreements with Panama, Columbia, and S. Korea.

In closing, Bush once again spoke of the war on terror while invoking the painful experience of 9/11 with Iraq when everyone today realizes there was no connection between the two. He invoked the same saber rattling type of statements his administration had used to justify the war with Iraq and pointed them toward Iran.

We have to hope that eight years of policies that benefited the wealthy at the expense of working men and women across the country will now thankfully come to an end. Policies that ignored the environment and continued 20th century energy practices.

Universal health care, a public education system that is second to no other country in the world and a foreign policy direction that is based on human rights should be among the goals of the next President and their administration.

It is time for change.