We must do more to help children when their schools do not measure up. Thanks to the DC Opportunity Scholarships you approved, more than 2,600 of the poorest children in our nation’s Capital have found new hope at a faith-based or other non-public school. Sadly, these schools are disappearing at an alarming rate in many of America’s inner cities. So I will convene a White House summit aimed at strengthening these lifelines of learning. And to open the doors of these schools to more children, I ask you to support a new $300 million program called Pell Grants for Kids. We have seen how Pell Grants help low-income college students realize their full potential. Together, we’ve expanded the size and reach of these grants. Now let us apply that same spirit to help liberate poor children trapped in failing public schools.
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the president is correct that scores, generally, have gone up since the enactment of No Child Left Behind.
However, Bush omitted some recent backsliding: scores for eighth-grade students are only slightly up from the first recorded year and are not the highest on record. The highest scores for eighth graders in reading were scored in 2002, and they have gone down a bit since then. The same applies to other grades and to other subgroups including African-American and Hispanic students.
Together we should take the next steps: Let us fund new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions. Let us increase the use of renewable power and emissions-free nuclear power. Let us continue investing in advanced battery technology & renewable fuels to power the cars and trucks of the future. Let us create a new international clean technology fund, which will help developing nations like India and China make greater use of clean energy sources.
And let us complete an international agreement that has the potential to slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases. This agreement will be effective only if it includes commitments by every major economy and gives none a free ride
The people’s trust in their government is undermined by congressional earmarks--special interest projects that are often snuck in at the last minute, without discussion or debate. Last year, I asked you to voluntarily cut the number and cost of earmarks in half. I also asked you to stop slipping earmarks into committee reports that never even come to a vote. Unfortunately, neither goal was met.
So this time, if you send me an appropriations bill that does not cut the number & cost of earmarks in half, I’ll send it back to you with my veto. And tomorrow, I will issue an executive order that directs federal agencies to ignore any future earmark that is not voted on by Congress.
By earmarks that are “not voted on by Congress,” Bush means provisions that are specified in committee reports but are never part of the text of a bill. The vast majority of earmarks are of this type, so Bush is threatening to ignore or veto a fairly significant percentage of potential earmarks. But he’s not going to do it until fiscal year 2009. By not including the 2008 spending bills, the Executive Order gives Congress months to finagle their way around these changes.
The Congress must also expand health savings accounts, create Association Health Plans for small businesses, promote health information technology, and confront the epidemic of junk medical lawsuits. With all these steps, we will help ensure that decisions about your medical care are made in the privacy of your doctor’s office--not in the halls of Congress.
Actually, there is a lot of uncertainty as to how many would benefit from Bush’s proposal. The projected number of uninsured in 2010--51 million--would be reduced by about 6.8 million to 9.2 million, according to different studies. One study calculated that the number of uninsured would actually increase by 1.5 million, because some employers would be prompted stop giving health insurance benefits.
These studies agree that the proposal gives much greater tax benefits to those with higher incomes. A majority of the uninsured, however, couldn’t benefit from the proposed tax deduction at all, because they don’t pay federal income taxes.
The London plot, however, was actually broken up in August 2006 by British law enforcement, according to news accounts at the time and also according to Bush himself. If wiretaps by US officials played any role, no administration official has yet said so publicly, despite plenty of opportunity.
To be sure, at other times Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff has said there was some involvement by the US, though he has yet to say what that role was. We find no public claim that the special wiretap program secretly authorized by Pres. Bush after the 2001 terrorist attacks had anything to do with foiling the plot.
It’s true that the number of consecutive months in which the economy has added jobs is the longest on record, but the number of jobs gained is not. The pace of job creation was far stronger during the Clinton administration, when 22.7 million new jobs were added despite seven months that saw slight declines. Since Bush’s “record” run began in August 2003, the gain has been 8.3 million. It’s true that wages are up: Average weekly earnings for rank-and-file workers were $605.96 in Dec. 2007, compared with $578.67 a year earlier. But after adjustment for rising prices, the buying power of the average weekly paycheck actually declined.
It is true that taxes would go up compared with what people pay now should all the tax cuts expire--we calculate an average increase of $1,713. But the AVERAGE increase would not be TYPICAL. The increase would be far smaller, $828, for “typical” middle-earners (income between $27,000 and $48,000 a year). And of course, the increase would be lower still for those with lower incomes. For more than 80% of taxpayers, the increase would be well below Bush’s “average” figure. But for the top 1% earners (with incomes over $435,000) the tax increase would be $64,154. That’s what pulls up the average to well above what ordinary taxpayers would experience
Source: 2008 State of the Union address to Congress Jan 28, 2008
Our message to the people of Iran is clear: We have no quarrel with you. Our message to the leaders of Iran is also clear: Verifiably suspend your nuclear enrichment, so negotiations can begin. And to rejoin the community of nations, come clean about your nuclear intentions and past actions, stop your oppression at home, cease your support for terror abroad. But above all, know this: America will confront those who threaten our troops, and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf.
This is accurate. But to put that in context, at the peak of the surge about 162,000 US troops were in Iraq. Prior to the surge, the total was about 130,000, [so the 20,000 troop reduction now does not reduce to the pre-surge level].
And Bush left out a bit of the back story of the sheer numbers of Iraqi Security Forces. Bush said, “Today, this grassroots surge includes more than 80,000 Iraqi citizens who are fighting the terrorists.” But at least 60,000 of the Iraqi citizens to which Bush refers--they’re called “Concerned Local Citizens” by the US military--are under contract with the U.S. military and being paid about $300 a month.
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The above quotations are from 2008 State of the Union address to Congress, plus the Democratic Response: Jan. 28, 2008.
Click here for other excerpts from 2008 State of the Union address to Congress, plus the Democratic Response: Jan. 28, 2008. Click here for other excerpts by George W. Bush. Click here for a profile of George W. Bush.
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