The True State of the Union: Unsettled, and in Need of Tough Love
Member's, Do you care about the State of our Union ? Will member's in Canada watch ? Does anyone care ? It will be interesting to see the results of our forum poll.
Thanks you for reading & voting in the above poll. It's a prelude to the upcoming MOTM contest in prep'in U 2 `Vote : )

Analysis by
Jill Lawrence
Senior Correspondent



Presidents often use a single word to describe the state of our union, and whatever the circumstances, they usually default to "strong." That is always true in a fundamental sense, given our size, our ideals, our resilience and our incomparable military. But it's never complete.

This year, if he were honest, President Obama might describe the state of the union as unsettled. The traumatic Tucson massacre has raised painful questions about how we as a nation regulate guns, handle mental illness and conduct our civic conversation. We continue to endure historically high unemployment and foreclosure rates, symptoms of the chronic economic weakness eating away at families and communities.

And we seem to be in a perpetual state of war. U.S. combat troops have left Iraq, but some 50,000 troops remain for other purposes and violence there continues. Obama has pledged to start withdrawing some of more than 150,000 troops from Afghanistan in July, even as his administration calls gains against the Taliban incremental and fragile, reports violence at record highs, and says we could have a presence there beyond 2014. All this as public opinion has turned decisively against that war.

Is it any wonder our politics are so volatile? We've swung from Democratic sweeps in 2008, to Republican sweeps in 2010, to Republicans on probation just a couple of weeks into their House reign – viewed more negatively than positively in a new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, with only 25 percent expecting them to "bring the right kind of change."

There's a new book called "Reality is Broken," about how games could improve the non-virtual world. The title struck me as a suitably bleak metaphor for our hurting times. But then the iPad popped into my head, and the Kindle, ever-smarter smart phones, GM's comeback (government-backed but by no means assured), Ford's success in the marketplace and – proof that we walk the walk -- our black president. Whatever your politics, is this a great country or what?


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America's diversity, creativity and persistence are legendary for good reason. Unfortunately, so is our nation's capacity to ignore facts. We may think well of our education and health systems, but they are not among the best in the world. An international study of 15-year-olds released last month found the United States is "merely an average performer" in reading and science, and below average in math. "A host of developed nations are out-educating us," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. The U.S. economy stands to lose tens of trillions of dollars if we don't, as Duncan put it, "stop napping at the wheel."


As for the health system, a report last year by the Commonwealth Fund found that we spend twice as much as six other developed nations on health but we rank last on access, safety, coordination, efficiency and fairness, and last overall. We also lag on national policies to promote primary care, quality improvement and information technology. "Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries," the report said. The new health law is designed to tackle some of these problems. If it survives.

Americans are most deluded about, or perhaps most willfully ignoring, the mammoth debt that is the gaping crack in our foundation ($14 trillion and rising, a quarter of it money we owe to China, Japan and Britain). We are most worried, numerous polls show, about jobs and the economy, and our personal ability to stay afloat financially.

These are not abstract concerns. The unemployment rate remains well above 9 percent, a record 6.3 percent of people are living in "deep poverty," health insurance premiums doubled from 1999 to 2009, and a record 1.2 million families are expected to lose their homes to foreclosure this year. Net worth has plummeted, particularly for minorities, driven in large part by the housing bust. The wealthiest now have assets a record 225 times greater than the median family net worth.

Wages, meanwhile, have stagnated for decades. The Economic Policy Institute drives the point home with numbers: Average increase in income for households in the bottom fifth of the income scale, $200 from 1979 to 2005. Average increase over the same period for those in the top .1 percent, $6 million.

Yet as serious as these problems are in the moment, it is the debt that most threatens America. It's not that people don't realize the government is in hock. "I don't know that I've ever seen the electorate more firm in its view that the government needs to cut spending," says Ed Gillespie, a founder of the conservative advocacy group Resurgent Republic. Alas, it's also clear that the public doesn't want the government to touch the big-ticket items that are driving the debt, namely Medicare and Social Security.

Former Sen. Pete Domenici, a onetime Budget Committee chairman who co-chaired a debt-reduction panel at the Bipartisan Policy Center, summoned the image of a nation content to watch football as "an American catastrophe" draws near. The debt, he said, is "chipping away silently while we have our way of life." The president needs to "tell us how bad things are," he told a small group of writers last week, even though that flies in the face of the customary upbeat insistence that the state of the union is strong.

The State of the Union address is usually a festive evening – pomp, circumstance and all three branches of government crammed into the House chamber, justices and Cabinet secretaries, senators and representatives. This year there are shadows over the event, from the absence of Rep. Gabby Giffords as she fights back from an assassin's shot through the brain, to the human toll of the seemingly endless recession, to nagging worries that our standing in the world is changing -- maybe even diminishing -- as we struggle with joblessness and debt.

A bit of comfort surely will come from seeing many lawmakers sitting the way senators and even some House members often work: in bipartisan pairs and groups, in tribute to Giffords and in contrast to the usual segregated seating and predictable group reactions. It's symbolic, but heartening all the same.

The rest is more complicated. Obama will be facing a nation in need of consolation, prodding, discipline, spine and inspiration. This isn't a year to offer a laundry list of programs or a celebration of our wonderfulness. It's a moment for tough love. Seize it and tell us what we need to hear. It can't hurt, and it might help.

 

I'll admit it. It would just bore me and depress me further to watch it :P

 

Thanks Mod `Mike, for being honest about your feelings.
It's refreshing : ) I will listen 2night on the radio & catch the recap when I get off from work on the TV so the commentator's can tell me their opinions on what our President had to say about the State of our Union or dis Union.
Some parties will be sitt'in 2gether & I think some are sleep'in 2gether to get their bills passed LOL
I just hope they wake `up & take care of our home first ~> (USA) , before they spend billions trying to correct the wrongs in other countries..How can I tell you how to run your home `if my home is not in order ?????

"Lead by example & not by force" unless U mess with `us
We need 2 win the war in the USA first (Crime/proverty/Drugs/Health care `Job's etc)
That's `all that fall'in outa head ~> It's empty again
Anyone have any extra toilet paper lol

OK, whose next to Sound `Off
It's `free & counts as forum acitivity : )

 

I haven't decided yet but maybe ?? I will just probably just make me mad

 

The state of the union is More LIES.. Lies that didn't work the 1st time. So they RE work them . They figure if they tell enough. They become the truth. I might still watch a bit of it. But its painfull.

 

I will watch it.

 

I have more important things to do.........


Wash my hair, walk the dog, clean the bathroom and laundry to name a few.

 

No I won't. Like Rick said before, its all lies and empty promises. Sorry if that makes me a bad American.

 

I'm going to watch! Nothing will probably apply to me but one can hope!

 

As a prospective social studies instructor, I am interested in what will be said. And why is there no smiley with the "Yes, I will watch." The "Don't care" And "Too depressing" both have . I want a SMILEY!!! DOWN WITH NEGATIVITY, 'Space!!!