Regardless of President Obama's bromides and happy assurances to the contrary, the State of the Union is not strong. The steady decline of this great republic is a real possibility. "We must somehow defend ourselves, as if we were arraigned on a capital charge," Cicero said.
There are hundreds of programs in existence that directly or indirectly provide billions of dollars of taxpayer money to corporations. Tonight the president should say he is getting tough on welfare -- corporate welfare.
Why wait for the president's speech? If you want to know his theme -- and it's hardly a surprise -- just glance at the quintessential Beltway pre-spin transaction: White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer's "exclusive" preview feed to Mike Allen's "Playbook." According to Pfeiffer, President Barack Obama is going to ... champion the middle class, which, Pfeiffer points out, his boss has done consistently since he began running for the highest office in the land back in 2007. That's true. I was there. Obama always has cited improving the economic lot of the middle class as a central purpose. So has every other politician in modern times. But as Obama prepares to deliver his latest State of the Union address, the issue isn't rhetoric -- it's results. And while the words are there, the results, to be blunt, are not.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has ruled out Social Security cuts in any plan to replace the sequester. President Obama, on the other hand, remains willing to offer the chained CPI Social Security cut as part of a grand bargain.
Even as our nation's first black president prepares to give his State of the Union Address, there is still significant work to be done on several fronts to achieve the equality that our founders envisioned.
Nugent will attend at the invitation of Republican Congressman Steve Stockman of Texas. But the message he sends is toxic for the Republican Party.
I firmly believe that at some point during his second administration President Obama is going to address the issue of mass incarceration in America. What I fear is that he is going to wait so long, and ultimately do so with such caution, as to minimize his potential impact.
I don't know what Sen. Marco Rubio is going to say in his official Republican response to the State of the Union tonight. But I think I can guess what he'll not be saying: anything new.
As the nation tunes in to hear him chart a path for our nation's prosperity, there are three policy prescriptions the President has already endorsed that, if fully implemented, could provide hope for growing the economy in the near-term.
Mr. President, in tonight's speech, focus on jobs. Urge Congress to abandon policies that we know will shrink our economy, and present a plan for putting America back to work.
Netflix Reauthorizes No Child Left Behind? Or so quips this EdWeek headline. Real-life Congress hasn't yet reauthorized NCLB (since 2007!), but characters on the Netflix series "House of Cards" do. "[Writer Beau] Willimon noted on Twitter that he hinged the plot on education because it affects us all directly and indirectly, and because of the contention that often revolves around education reform," EdWeek writes. Read the full story for a taste of which education fights the show covers. My take: Obviously TV isn't reality, but there are a few major inaccuracies. The most glaring one in my eyes is that teachers unions can't legally hold a national strike over some federal legislation they dislike!
The way forward must involve compromise. I know that you sent me to Washington to get results. That is why I voted to go without pay if we cannot pass a budget. If you didn't do your job you wouldn't get paid, and neither should Congress
There are immediate, concrete steps the president can announce in tonight's speech which will help struggling homeowners while at the same time stimulating the economy and promoting job creation.
Congress used to take the president a lot more seriously, which is a tradition that seems ripe for revival.
Rubio has an opportunity to do much more than mend fences for the Republicans. He has an historic chance to show he is not a merely a politician tasked by party elders to reach out to a disgruntled constituency, but a statesman.
President Obama is going to speak about the economy and foreign policy and many other issues, and a large number of citizens listening and watching will interpret the State of the Union address through a prism of the affective forecasting bias.