State Of The Union...

I consider myself to be reasonably open minded when it comes to politics. Being the leader of this country must be an extremely difficult job. I often wonder if there is any group of individuals that can be successful at fulfilling that role.

As I listened to the State Of The Union speech last night, I heard everything President Bush was saying, yet I couldn't help but think to myself, 'so what!' and 'so how is our country doing?'.

Honestly, I feel pretty discouraged with current conditions in our country. I'm deeply concerned over the national debt. Today, 1/29/08, it's sitting at about $9.2 trillion dollars. Yes... trillion... that's a lot of zeros. According to one source (http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/) our debt has been rising at a rate of $1.43 billion (yes BILLION) dollars per day, since September 29, 2006. As if that's not bad enough, an article in the Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080129/NATION/748742259/1002/NATION) reports that President Bush is seeking another $70 BILLION dollars to fund our war efforts through 2009.

This country is already 9.2 TRILLION dollars in debt, where is the $70 BILLION dollars supposed to come from???

Seriously folks... you or I would never survive conducting our finances in this manner. If your family made $100K per year and had $300K in revolving credit card debt, such that your income was not even able to cover the interest on that debt, there is no way a legitimate financial institution would lend you any more money.

Under these circumstances, you would find that your day to day life was completely constrained by your financial state. You wouldn't be able to go out for entertainment, you wouldn't be able to afford to repair your car, you wouldn't be able to absorb medical expenses, you wouldn't be paying college tuition, and the list goes on. Why? Because your finances are in complete turmoil!!

Well that's exactly the state of affairs (State Of The Union) that this country is in right now. Oh sure... some folks are doing okay, but as these financial conditions continue to worsen, more and more folks are dropping off the back end.

What's it going to take for our leadership to accept the true State Of Our Union and start turning this around? I'm happy to see President Bush move on and I'm still hopeful about our country's future. Hopefully our next leader will be able to take a snapshot of where this country stands when they take office and show real results at the conclusion of their first term.

I don't know how you feel, and I've never considered myself to be a selfish person, but I'm looking for a candidate that will spend their 8 years focusing on fixing THIS country and inform our international allies that they are going to have to do more to take care of themselves, until we get our own house in order.