just found this and it made more sense than he did
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It’s been a long time since I paid attention to the state of the union speech.
By Constitutional requirement, the President is supposed to deliver an annual report on the nation’s status to Congress, so that Congress can consider how to allocate funds and which bills to prioritize. I don’t know when that last happened, but I don’t think it was during my lifetime.
As long as I can remember, the State of the Union is nothing but a political speech, with the President claiming credit for any good thing he can find in the nation, and telling Congress what he wants them to do. Honestly, if I were in Congress, I wouldn’t bother showing up for this, even if the President was from my own party.
It’s difficult to make it more of a mockery than the politicians have already done. Can you imagine a CEO delivering a speech like this to the corporate board? The board would look for a new CEO. Yet that’s what we’ve come to accept from our elected officials.
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Aside from the fact that the speech was supposed to be the state of the union, I thought it was his best speech. But then I only heard a small portion of it.
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The musical theme said it all! No more commentary required!
I miss those days!
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Jefferson believed that the State of the Union should be a written report rather than a political speech. Jefferson believed that a speech to Congress made the President seem like a monarch and a written report allowed for careful consideration and deliberation by Congress.
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I believe Jefferson was correct.
I can’t find the exact story, but I believe it was President Washington who swore he would never again visit Congress.
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I don’t know whether your Washington story is correct, but ignoring Congress does not help, in the same way that refusing to vote does not help. Our government can only work if intelligent, honest, true public servants occupy office. It does not work when a collection of partisan clowns looking to parley public office into a lucrative lobbying job “represent” us.
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Sorry, Washington was not ignoring Congress. He simply swore he would never go there again, unlike modern presidents who like to stand before them and give political speeches.
The story goes (I hope I have this correct) that Washington went to the Senate for “advice and consent.” The Senate wasted the whole day debating trivia instead of addressing Washington’s questions. When Washington left, he swore he would never do that again.
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Sounds like the Senate was filled with empty suits in Washington’s day, as is true today. Do nothings who’s only expertise is running for office.
This is why people look to the courts – a body of unelected, unaccountable elite appointees – to make law on pressing issues, like abortion, marriage, immigration and, of course, guns. Congress simply lacks the political will to even consider such things. They will, however, use those topics to run for office, but, if elected do nothing. “Vote for me! Send me a dollar! I will outlaw abortion or protect you gun rights or balance the budget.”
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An Brandon has none of those traits
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For your listening enjoyment:
When a SOTU was actually inspirational.
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