January 28, 2003

I had mixed feelings on the President’s Address. Perhaps, because it was a mixed message. I do agree with the President’s assessment, that “We serve in a time of great consequence.”

That being said, what I was hoping to hear tonight from the President was a call for shared sacrifice. That is the American ethic, circle the wagons, tighten our belts, let’s all pull together. Instead, what I heard tonight was that the richest people in this country are getting a $674 billion tax cut and the rest of us are basically out of luck. We have 260,000 Veterans in this country who are waiting six or eight months for an appointment at the VA because we under-funded our responsibilities to our Veterans. We have 41 million Americans without health insurance. But the Republicans have set their priority and it is to give the rich a tax cut.

Maybe it’s me, but where I grew up, that’s not the American way. Think about it. Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson all led this nation in times of crisis, financial turmoil and insecurity. They each responded by asking more of American people, and America only grew stronger.

I was hopeful that tonight President Bush would embrace that same principle of shared sacrifice. I was hopeful that he would ask Americans to understand that, even though it was his campaign promise, we should freeze the hundreds of billions in tax cuts that haven’t been phased in yet. I was hopeful that he would put forward an ambitious proposal for America to stimulate the economy that, in President Kennedy’s words, would “appeal to their pride, not to their pocketbook.”

What President Bush gave us was another tax cut. With all due respect to the President’s plan, the United States is facing skyrocketing unemployment. We’ve lost 2 million jobs in the last two years. That’s the worst record of job creation for any President since the Second World War. We also have the slowest economic growth in 50 years. We’ve had cutbacks in education, health care, veterans’ services and local aid, we’ve funded one war in Afghanistan and we continue to face the prospect of war in Iraq. And we continue to stand and watch as the states are struggling to address billion dollar deficits for the next two years. Yet the President didn’t address that in his plan. So seemingly our cities and towns will have to shoulder the burden alone.

I don’t honestly believe that eliminating the dividend tax and accelerating tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans are the bold initiatives we’re looking for from our President. The American people are smarter than that. We want to be challenged. We want America to succeed and we want to be a part of the solution. Our parents and grandparents answered President Roosevelt’s call during the Great Depression and World War II--they donated blood, they saved tin, they planted victory gardens, they went without luxuries and, when asked, they put on the uniform to defend our nation. What they didn’t do was ask for a tax cut on their stock portfolios.

In the end, I think President Bush missed out on a valuable opportunity tonight, but I’m hopeful that like-minded Democrats and Republicans will be able to steer our country in a more promising direction.