Kerry Says Bush Address Ignores America’s Priorities
JK issued a statement following the State of the Union address:
The President missed a golden opportunity tonight to admit that he made a mistake in Iraq and to share with the American people a plan for gradually removing our troops and allowing the Iraqis to solve the political crisis in Iraq. Instead, he glossed over the disastrous war and its multi-billion-dollar price tag and implied again that our presence in Iraq is somehow improving the situation in that chaotic and turbulent country. The Congress must stand up against Bush’s plan to escalate the war with a new surge of troops and I will be introducing legislation shortly to demand that the Administration set a date for withdrawing troops from Iraq. The President’s address came up short in other areas as well – like his idea to tax worker health benefits and his failure to seriously address the challenge of global climate change. Our economy is headed in the wrong way; wages are barely keeping up with inflation and family income is on the way down,” Kerry said.
More specifically, the President missed the mark on several fronts:
ENERGY: Once again the President only paid lip service to a meaningful energy agenda that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. His record speaks for itself – we’re more dependent on foreign oil than ever before. Tonight the President failed to embrace bold policies to break our oil dependence. The President says the nation should reduce U.S. gas usage by 20 percent over the next 10 years, but a goal without a roadmap for getting there is useless. The President should have included more funding for hybrids and battery technology.
HEALTH CARE: Providing more people with meaningful, affordable health care is a laudable goal, but taxing worker health benefits to get there is a terrible idea. We need to increase the number of insured Americans, not play a shell game that risks coverage for those who have coverage today. As many as 35 million people could face higher taxes under the President’s plan while many millions more will face a choice of higher taxes or inadequate coverage in future. The President’s plan could actually increase the number of uninsured if employers decide to shift the entire premium cost to workers or offer only high-deductible plans.
IMMIGRATION: Once again the President called for immigration reform that includes a guest worker program. I support comprehensive immigration reform and I’m disappointed that President Bush walked away from the issue last congress in the heat of the midterm elections. I hope that he’ll work with the Democratic-led congress to make comprehensive reform a reality.
7 Comments
New comments for this entry are closed.
Bravo! Thank you Senator Kerry for remaining to committed to setting a deadline to remove U.S. troops from Iraq.
The situation in Iraq is deteriorating rapidly. On Saturday morning, the casualty count for U.S. troops was 3,028. Today, three days later the fatalities have climbed to 3,060, including an attack by a disguised group that resulted in the death of five American soldiers. In this same period, two helicopters carrying Americans have been shot down.
I hope Congress realizes that it’s time for real change, not just on the issue of Iraq, but also the problems that have been allowed to mount from six years of failed policies and inaction. These six years have been more than just a setback, they’ve created new domestic problems and unleashed new international threats.
It’s going to take conviction and time to reverse the damage and set the country on the right path. There is a way forward with vision, and this release makes it clear:
Run John, Run.
Same ol’ George Bush, just hammer out the patriotic speech… I’m not sure how much experience Bush has with the Internet, but he should realize, news can travel almost at the speed of light, or however fast the networks allow… and blatantly ignoring the fact that the situation in Iraq is not improving, and instead saying it is, is only proof of his neglect for advancing our country into the 21st century. Our nation is so far behind in technology, countries such as Japan and Germany are leaping further than we’ll be in ten years if things don’t turn around now.
I’d like to make suggestion.
Energy: With technology rising around the globe, and many things becoming automated by computer systems, energy needs are rapidly increasing. This goes for more than just electronics, but in our vehicles as well. What concerns me is how we can develop electric bicycles, electric cars, and yet, where is the emergence of electric motorcycles to pave the way for the road ahead? Although motorcycles are of little practicality to most American families, and there are safety concerns, perhaps providing funding for the development of an electrical motorcycle for mass production would inspire the same for automobiles. Motorcycles are light weight, usually weighing between 300-700 pounds, and often require less than 100 horse-power for high speeds. Imagine, if you will, an electric motor that powers a 450 pound motorcycle, at least to a speed of 100 mph maximum. Certainly, such funding for such a project is one major step to relieving the United States from dependence on oil for the transportation industry.
Similar prototypes and working models could be created for the off-road dirt bikes, beach cruisers for patrol officers. Combining necessary alternating currents and rechargeable batteries found in modern automobiles, could provide sufficient energy for little or no recharging.
Why there aren’t more electric motors put into lightweight transports: lack of funding, investors too far into oil stocks to care or risk the loss, are my best guesses.
Thank you Senator Kerry, your 4 paragraphs say more and give more hope to the American people then Bush has given us in 6 years.
Thank you for fighting for what is right for this country and for our respect in the world.
P.S. Run, John, Run
The silence during Bush’s spiel on the troop escalation was absolutely deafening--I’m really surprised he didn’t get booed.
It INFURIATES me when Bush keeps talking about the need for America to ensure that the Iraqi gov’t will treat its citizens with fairness and respect
--what the ****??? Why is that such an issue with him when HIS administration has been so abusive of American citizens?!?! And why is it now up to the Dems to curry “Bipartisanship?” There was ZERO talk of bipartisanship when the Repubs were in the majority.
(Sorry, I’m just venting...Guess I’ll need to make a $$ contribution now for the therapy!)
Run, JK, run!!
So that was President Bush giving his sixth annual pep talk to the Congress, its minions, and the American people… and yes, this time it really was to the people, not to the sheeple.
Even when he started going into his same old same old talking points in the latter parts of the speech, it was clear to everyone in the room and at home that he wasn’t able to pull the tired and tattered wool over the nation’s collective eyes again this time.
State of the Union? More like the State of Dys-union. Mr. Bush’s poll ratings are in the tank and still sinking. His credibility at home and abroad is at an all-time low. Even key members of his own party are turning against him now, and he still has two long years left to go before he’s off the hook.
The self-styled Decider might still somehow believe that his failure-plagued presidency leadership will not falter and it will not fail; but it was clear from the tepid reaction his remarks received that an awakened America is no longer willing to swallow his too-familiar spiel.
The president might have jumped the shark in his SOTU speech last night, but the post-speech rebuttal by newly-minted Senator James Webb was a calm and collected minor masterpiece of public speaking.
Mr. Webb is certainly no bleeding-heart left-wing liberal; he was, after all, Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy back before the scales fell from his eyes. He comes from a long line of military men, and unlike the politicians who dragged their country into an immoral and unnecessary war of adventure, he has a son who is directly in the line of fire today.
So Mr. Webb’s credibility when it comes to the conflicts in the Middle East far outranks that of the men who have been charged with keeping America safe in the world. He didn’t hammer too hard on the issue of Iraq in his reply to the president’s worn-out words of war, but he said the right things and he said them well.
The text transcript and video of Mr. Webb’s rebuttal to the SOTU speech are available in other places online by now. But it is worth taking a moment to quote some of the high points of his remarks here as well:
The key points that Mr. Webb made in his remarks can be summed up in that final phrase—it does fall upon those of us in elected office to take action, just as it falls upon those of us in the voting booths and the chambers of commerce and the streets of our cities to take action as well.
Our duly-elected representatives like Senator Kerry, Senator Webb, and Madame Speaker Pelosi can wave the flags and show us the way. But in the final analysis, it is still up to us—up to all of us, you and I and our fellow Americans as well—to follow their lead and to act, not just react.
Mr. Bush’s statements in his SOTU speech merely underscored where we as a country have ended up, and reminded us of how we ended up here. But Mr. Kerry’s words and Mr. Webb’s words and the words of the others who spoke up in reply to the president’s recursive remarks help to show us where we have to go from here instead.
They spoke. We listened. And now it is up to each of us to heed the call, to climb out of our collective handbasket, and to steer our country upwards, not downwards, again.
Looking forward to hearing more about JK’s withdrawal legislation, and more about these other issues. Americans are really starved for good policy, I think, and it’s frustrating to see the President planning to give us more of the same…
Neither fighting a War on Terrorism nor force feeding a caricature of US style Representative Democracy to a conquered, deeply divided but still combative, Iraqi population can justify the continued presence of the United States’ military and private security forces in Iraq, particularly when that presence has signified only death, destruction and the squandering of both nations reserves, infrastructure and human resources at the expense of worthy and socially necessary domestic programs in the USA.
The United States has no more business being in Iraq than G.W. Bush has in the presidency. Both represent tragic and costly errors on the part of both US legislators and the US electorate. I hope that America’s legislators will correct rather than compound their own error further, over the course fo the next two years.