SOTU - Preview

Lubos challenged us to prepare a better State of the Union speech than the Prez and his hacks. I'm working on it, but lacking the large WH staff, it's taking a while, so here is a preview:
Fellow citizens, the state of our Union is strong but imperiled. The strength lies in the vitality of our democratic institutions, the vigor of our economy, and the unmatched power of our military. Unlike most nations of the world, we hold our destiny mainly in our own hands. We live in a world of peril, nonetheless. The peril comes not mainly from our enemies, dastardly though they be, because they are few and weak. I believe the main perils we face are the common perils of the world and the those mainly internal to our government.

Those internal threats consist of corruption, incompetence, and, above all, the sorry state of our nation's finances. The United States is currently committed to pay not only very large debts, but very large sums in Social Security, military retirement, and other benefits provided by law. There are currently estimated to be more than 30 trillion dollars in such unfunded liabilities over the next 50 years, and the nation's future finances are seriously threatened by our current practice of spending far more than we collect in taxes. I shall propose programs to secure a sound financial future for ourselves and our children.

Corruption is a cancer on the body politic that erodes and distorts every aspect of civic life. It is with regret that I say that the current Congress sitting at this speech has been deeply marred by such corruption, and the excecutive branch has also been affected. Financial corruption strikes at the very heart of the system of free market capitalism upon which this nation is built, because it distorts markets, hinders competition, and destroys the transparency necessary to efficient commerce. There is another kind of corruption, the corruption of power, that is even more invidious. This corruption occurs when those who control the government manipulate it to maintain their power. The corruption of power destroys citizens faith in government, and their ability to make it serve their will. Left unchecked, it leads to tyranny and slavery. I shall propose programs to attack these two corruptions at their sources.

The third internal disease of government I intend to attack is incompetence. We have seen striking examples of that incompetence in our failure to recognize and prevent the 9/11 attacks, in inept misanalysis of the threat posed by Iraq, and the feckless response to Hurrican Katrina. Again, I will propose a program to eliminate the chief sources of that incompetence.

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