29 January 2008

Shorter SOTU

The full text of the State of the Union address delivered Monday is here, but the real version is burdened by Washington speak, political conceits and unnecessary applause. So here is the shorter version:

Things have been getting better because Americans are great. But our economic future is uncertain.

Let's cut taxes and furthermore let's not let tax cuts expire. Taxes are bad and I'll veto them.

My budget make 151 cuts for a total of $18 billion and the budget will be balanced several years after I'm out of office.

It is the policy of the executive branch to ignore the intent of the legislative branch when implementing the budget.

I want to reorganize the federal housing bureaucracies and allow state housing agencies to issue tax-free bonds to help homeowners refinance their mortgages.

End the bias in the tax code against those who do not get their health insurance through their employer, encourage health savings accounts, develop association health plans for small businesses, and promote health information technology. Medical malpractice plaintiffs lawyers screw everything up, so we should make it harder for victims of medical malpractice from bringing lawsuits.

The No Child Left Behind Act is great, and so are private schools despite the fact that they are going out of business in droves. Let's spend $300 million to send kids to private schools because public schools suck.

Free trade rocks. Please pass trade treaties with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, because we don't make imports pay tariffs but other countries tax our exports which isn't fair because American stuff is the best stuff. Free trade will end terrorism and drugs and put politicians I don't like in other countries out of work. Americans will lose their jobs as a result so we should send them back to school to get new jobs.

Clean coal, renewables and nuclear power are the answers to our energy problems. So are better batteries and biofuels and energy efficiency. We should spend money for environmental measures in India and China.

Spend money on physical sciences research. Medical research is O.K. too except that medical researchers are unethical scum who want to destroy, buy, sell, patent and clone human life, all of which are evil.

Please vote in my ultra-conservative judicial nominees.

We should use federal funds to support religious charities.

Katrina screwed New Orleans so I'm going to hold a diplomatic meeting there.

We spend too much money on old people and sick poor people.

The solution to immigration is a big fence on the Mexican border, more border patrol agents, more raids on workplaces, guest worker programs, and "a sensible and humane way to deal with people here illegally."

Democracy abroad is good and extremist Islamic terrorists are evil.

The war in Afghanistan is a good thing for the Afghans because the bad guys are terrorists, so I'm sending 3,200 more troops.

We sent more troops and civilian aid officials to Iraq because the bad guys there are terrorists and they were winning. Now we're winning and the Sunni Iraqis are fighting terrorists and the Iraqi government has more troops. Everything is much better in Iraq now. Soldiers are great, keep funding the war in Iraq. And, we're slowly ending the surge. Everything is going to work out in Iraq even though its fucked up now.

Peace in Israel would be great.

Iran's rulers are irrational evil people who live terrorism and want to blow us to bits with nuclear weapons. Fuck with us and will fight back.

Terrorists are out to get us, but fail because we violate civil liberties by illegally spying on you. If we have to stop illegal spying the terrorists will get us.

Genocide in Sudan is bad. We should bribe countries to be democratic, end corruption and respect the rule of law. Lots of people would starve if we weren't so generous. We should buy crops that aren't made in America to help farmers abroad. We should spend lots of money money to fight malaria and AIDS.

We should more on Veterans and reform the VA and being nice to military families.

Everything's going to turn out fine.


Nothing surprising here.

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