State of the Union

Tonight is the State of the Union Address. I always enjoy these speeches, as well as the opposing party's response which follows. Tonight's lineup will include both current president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, giving the State of the Union address, and current Virginia Governor, Bob McDonnell, giving the GOP State of the Union Response immediately following the Obama's Address. Call me a dork, but I love this stuff and can't wait to see how it plays out. Rumor has it that the focus of this year's address will be a proposed spending freeze. I find this extremely interesting for a couple of reasons. Not necessarily bad, just interesting.

The first glaring reason is that Obama himself was against this very approach back during the election when Senator John McCain was endorsing an "across the board spending freeze". Does anyone remember the hatchet vs scalpel analogy? Anyone? Anyone? I do. At the time I actually loved that analogy and was eager to see how he would use that scalpel to enact his plans. Recall that quote from November of 2008,

"We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way."

I digress, but there are two points. First is that I've yet to see that scalpel in action. By the way, I'd still really like to see it used! Second is back to our topic of the spending freeze; why the hatchet now? I'm not against it, but it's against some of the very principles and positions that got him elected. Why now? Why following the tremendous bailout? The two don't seem to be in the same line of thinking.

The second reason I find this approach interesting is the application of the spending freeze. Granted, I have not heard every detail of this plan but from what I have gathered, it makes many cuts (which may be worthwhile or not) but avoids some of the major spending areas. Those areas include Entitlement spending and Defense spending. Who would not agree that these are some of our largest cost buckets?

Those are two reasons that I find tonight's upcoming speech interesting and am quite eager to see how it plays out during both the original address and the Republican rebuttal. Can I reiterate what a dork I am?! hahaha. I can't wait!