January 28, 2006
Put Substance, Not Style in State of the Union Address
By Edwin
J. Feulner
It's usually a safe bet: The more hype surrounding an event, the
more disappointing the event itself. Take the Super Bowl: After
a two-week media circus, it's often the worst football game of
the season.
The same
principle applies to the State of the Union address. Until the
20th century, presidents quietly sent them to lawmakers in writing.
But in recent decades, the state of the union address has become
"The State of the Union Address," complete with wall-to-wall
media coverage and "expert" commentary.
But all the
style in the world means nothing unless the speech is based on
substance. Next week's address will succeed only if President
Bush can focus attention on three main topics.
The first
is the war on terror. In recent weeks, we've witnessed a media
frenzy over whether the president abused his authority when he
authorized the National Security Agency to screen phone calls
between suspected al-Qaida operatives. Former presidential candidate
Al Gore accused him of "breaking the law repeatedly and insistently."
This all
boils down to a fairly simple debate: Are we at war or not? If
not, then monitoring calls may indeed violate our cherished civil
liberties. But if we are at war, spying on our enemies only makes
sense.
The president
needs to remind the nation that we're still at war -- one that
he warned us from the start would be long and unlike any we'd
fought before. He should acknowledge setbacks, but also highlight
our many successes -- and note the fact that we're winning. This
doesn't necessarily mean presenting an exit strategy. It simply
means reminding Americans of why we're fighting, what we're fighting
for and how we're doing. And the president needs to make it clear
that the war will end, with our enemies defeated.
The second
thing Bush needs to focus on is how to expand and extend American
prosperity.
America's
economy is the envy of the world. It generates more than 100,000
new jobs every month. Unemployment has edged down to less than
5 percent, lower than it was in the late 1990s. Most Americans
are better off than ever.
The president
needs to make it clear that his policy of lowering tax rates is
a key reason for this prosperity. Tax rates are down, but tax
collections are up. Last month, the Treasury took in more in corporate
taxes than it had in any month in history. Making the lower rates
permanent would allow us to keep the economy strong.
Of course,
we also must get spending under control. Washington spent almost
$22,000 per household last year, the highest level since World
War II. That's one-third higher than when Bush took office. This
year, he should vow to reverse that trend.
Finally,
his most difficult task: Bush must launch a process that will
force all parties -- regardless of their ideological beliefs --
to confront the coming entitlement crisis.
Every year,
the Social Security and Medicare trustees issue reports that show
the programs are ticking time bombs. Unless they're fixed, these
massive entitlements will swallow an ever-greater share of government
spending in decades to come. Left unchecked, they will force Washington
to raise taxes to European levels and crowd out spending on all
other programs, from defense and diplomacy to education and homeland
security, by 2045.
So far, the
left's policy on entitlement reform has been to have no policy.
That's unacceptable. Last year, Bush proposed saving Social Security
through the creation of personal savings accounts, a sensible
reform that would allow all workers to save for their own retirement.
If liberals won't sign on to that, they must at least come up
with some proposals.
Even if we
can't immediately agree on the solutions, we need to agree there
are problems and promise to work together to solve them.
In the end,
after the television lights are shut off, Bush's State of the
Union address should be judged on whether it highlights the truly
critical challenges facing the nation and starts a substantive
debate on those issues. If he hammers away at these three simple
points, this year's address will live up to the highest expectations.
Edwin
J. Feulner, Ph.D., is President of The
Heritage Foundation.
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1995 - 2006 The Heritage Foundation
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