State of the Union
January 29th, 2008 | by Scott |Last year I announced my resignation from my pastorate in Waco in July. I remained through the end of September continuing to preach and teach when I was in town.
I continued my passion for the text and what I was presenting but the long-term scope of what I was doing. Even in the times that my passion was stirred it was somewhat subdued due to the lame duck status in which I was working.
Last night? Yeah, it was like that. This is not a criticism of GW but I saw little of the humor mixed with boldness that always made him so likable even when I disagreed with him so sharply.
Is he counting the days until it’s over?
35 Responses to “State of the Union”
By len on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
I don’t think GWB is counting the days until it is over so much as he is just tired, exhausted from the responsibilities of the presidency.
By greg on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
I watched Duke-Tennessee women’s basketball…
By jasonk on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
I was in Paris, Texas watching my 6 feet tall niece play college basketball, so I missed the speech.
I’m with Len in that he is not counting the days. But I would say it is more like, he is giving all his naysayers the finger. A two term president who will spend the rest of his days working on his ranch in West Texas, collecting his pension and the royalties off of his oil biz.
Its like he’s getting the last laugh, and he knows it.
By Scott on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
I didn’t get that vibe at all. It was a subdued, almost somber, speech. Very atypical from what I have come to expect.
By Robin on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Are you kidding? Did you watch it from the beginning? My President was back and I thought it was one of his best speeches. I loved it when he said the IRS accepts checks and money orders for those who would like to pay more taxes. He is not tired or counting the days. He will continue to do his job and go strong until the end.
By Scott on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
I watched it from the beginning as I have every single one of his SOTU’s. The example you give was a rare example of humor where it was ever-present in the past.
It was a lame-duck speech with little to nothing to inspire the American people. I’m not a fan but I can look at SOTU’s of the past and see more areas in which he connected across the aisles. This one failed to do so.
I’m not talking about the content of what he said. I’m looking at this primarily from a speech giving perspective. As one who does this on a regular basis it was not his best.
By jasonk on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Scott, you speak to a joint session of congress, and to the nation, on a regular basis? Man! You rock!
I only heard excerpts, and read the paper this morning. Good speech, but how hard would it be to give a speech with so many highly partisan people listening, like Hillary, who sat on her hands watching to see how Obama would react to each comment?
By Scott on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
No, I meant my preaching and teaching is usually extended because it is prolonged by the incessant need of the audience to break out into rapturous applause. It’s great but it means my sermons usually run long.
Again, I’m not making a statement about the content of the speech (although I have problems with quite a bit of it). I study presentation styles and have in my mind great speeches. This was uncharacteristic of what he has typically done.
By jasonk on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Do you remember that great speech given by President Bill Mitchell? Only it wasn’t really Bill Mitchell giving the speech, it was really Dave Kovic, posing as Bill Mitchell? I wrote that.
By Belinda on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
I’m counting the days until he’s gone!
By jasonk on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Belinda,
Maybe he feels the same about you :>)
By greg on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
That wasn’t really Bill Mitchel??
By Jonathan on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Robin said:
About the tax cuts issue, Slate’s Daniel Gross provides analysis here: link
By Robin on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
You know what Jonathan - I don’t care if it’s a dollar in tax relief that I get - it’s my dollar and my husband or I earned that dollar - not the government. I’m tired of the government in my pocket over and over and over. Just renewing my license plates in Michigan is overwhelming. This is a tax under the guise of a fee. Some years I have spent close to $1,000 to renew all the fees on my vehicles, etc. I’m tired of it. Maybe you aren’t but I am. Let Americans have what relief we can get since liberals don’t want to give any at all.
By Justin on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
The income tax is illegal. Check out America: Freedom to Fascism on google videos. Good documentary.
I have absolutely no problem with taxes that are avoidable, just like the Constitution. Theoretically, I don’t have to buy gas, or milk, or whatever. But taxing someone’s income is akin to slavery, in my opinion. Whatever percentage your income tax is, that’s the percentage of the year that you are essentially working for the government. And you have no choice in the matter if you want to earn any money.
Get rid of the income tax. End the War in Iraq and bring our troops all around the world back home. No country can attack us in a conventional way, and if they wanna pull a 9/11, theres nothing the military can do to stop them. But the threat of being blown up later is a pretty good deterrent, I believe.
You drastically cut military spending, and get rid fo the income tax, you just have to go back 10 years for the budget to match up. We’re living beyond our means. Its time to man up and realize that we can’t redistribute wealth to make everyone’s life perfect, and we can’t be the world’s cop.
By Jonathan on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Quoting myself from September: link
By Jonathan on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Robin, what do you think about this quote from Gross?
By Robin on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
“I know a lot of people really hate paying taxes, but it doesn’t bother me much at all.”
So I assume you will be one of the folks President Bush was talking about who will be sending any “refund” you get back to the IRS?
By Robin on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Well, let’s look at this another way, if they didn’t have so much of our money they wouldn’t be able to spend it.
By Scott on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
“if they didn’t have so much of our money they wouldn’t be able to spend it.”
Does that mean we can cut defense spending?
By Scott on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
I agree with Jonathan. I don’t mind paying some taxes for the benefit I get. One of my major points of departure for me politically over the past few years was moving beyond the “me and mine” mentality to embracing the idea that there are many services that people benefit from as a result of my tax dollars.
I also imagine that this is such a difference in ideology that there won’t be much movement or yielding on either side of the aisle.
By len on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
I don’t mind paying taxes to an extent. My ideological belief, however, is that the government is not the best way for most things to be done. I agree that health care needs to be fixed, but in the long-term I don’t think Washington is the best solution. Same thing with helping the poor. Unfortunately, once the gov gets its hand in something it doesn’t let go.
By len on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
And yes, we can probably cut some defense spending.
By Scott on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
I agree that the government is not the best way for things to get done. But I also believe that usually the best way involves government working in concert with other entities. The church should be at the forefront in helping the poor but so should the government be involved.
By Justin on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Guys, you should check out this link to understand why the original writers of the Constitution made it so that a progressive income tax could never be in the cards. It was a protection so that the politicians couldn’t ever heavily tax a small minority and use the untaxed majority to keep themselves in office. Well….
http://www.devvy.com/notax.html
By Scott on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
The original writers of the constitution are dead.
I’m just sayin…
By Justin on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Yeah, but you can’t deny that they were smarter than almost all of our current leaders. If they have any idea what’s going on currently, they are probably losing their minds.
BTW, I know most of you think I’m a crazy person. And I’m ok with that. When you wake up one morning and Oceania is always at war with Eurasia, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength… I will probably be in a prison somewhere.
By Justin on Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
“I’m just sayin…. ”
That’s totally a Sorkin thing. Its one of those phrases you can count on happening multiple times each episode. Drinking game material.
By Robin on Jan 30, 2008 | Reply
Jonathan - re your quote from “Gross”. It’s interesting that you all are so unhappy with all the money President Bush has spent yet you support candidates for the office that only talk about how much more the government will be doing for us. How much money do you think universal health insurance is going to cost? Or ideas like Hillary’s of giving every newborn $1,000; or Obama who is going to take every carbon unit we produce? You think President Bush has spent - just wait.
By Robin on Jan 30, 2008 | Reply
Sorry, - I meant that Obama will tax. What is a carbon unit anyway?
By Jonathan on Jan 30, 2008 | Reply
Like I said, I’m not intrinsically unhappy with the government spending money to accomplish good. I’m not thrilled about $720 million a day (or whatever the real number is) in Iraq, especially since I’m not convinced that we’re better off for it.
The point of the quote for me is that you can’t simultaneously decrease your income and increase your spending without exacerbating your debt. If you don’t make tough decisions about increasing your income and/or decreasing your spending then you are risking the future for short term (political) benefit…an approach that I consider to be neither wise nor praiseworthy.
If you want to read up on the basics of the concept of a carbon tax, go here: link
Like a mile is a unit of distance, a second is a unit of time, etc. a carbon unit is a standard amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. Different activities (for example, the burning of different types of fuel) release carbon at different rates and so standard carbon units can be used to compare them (and tax them) on a common basis…2.9 carbon units per kg of coal, 2.3 carbon units per liter of gas, etc.
By len on Jan 30, 2008 | Reply
Carbon units are what Al Gore purchases so he can still preach against global warming without actually having to change his lifestyle.
By Robin on Jan 30, 2008 | Reply
Amen, Len, Amen.
By Jonathan on Jan 30, 2008 | Reply
Nope, those are carbon offsets but I pretty much agree with len’s characterization of them: link
By SG on Jan 30, 2008 | Reply
Voted for him twice. He is counting the days. did you read the interview with jenna in Texas Monthly? I think they are all counting the days and she said as much. I don’t think GW is at all happy with the state of the union, he just seems a bit resigned to it.