THE STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH PART 1

I made it through an hour of the President's speech last night, owing mostly to the fact that I was running on the elliptical machine at the gym and it was on the tv in front of me. I make this disclosure so you won't think it was a heroic effort.

The president looked like he was really struggling. He did not have much of the old pep. It has been a hard year for him and it showed.

Still, it is evident that he thinks his ideas are good and he wants to continue with them, despite opposition. Only grudgingly is he modifying his plan.

I also thought the pandering on jobs was pathetic. For a minute, I thought he might coop the old Ford slogan and say: Jobs are Job 1!

First of all, you know the reason he emphasized jobs was because his Democratic congressmen up for mid term elections are scare to death and want to campaign on creating jobs.

Second, the stimulus plan in which Congress voted a record spending package was supposed to create jobs. It has not done so. His claim of 200,000 new jobs is hard to nail to down, but, regardless, is a drop in the bucket to the number of jobs lost even last month. This is the guy who crows when he can say we lost fewer jobs than we expected.

In that vein, the claim that Tampa was building a railway with stimulus money was doubtful. They may be getting money, but you know they haven't planned a new rail way from scratch since the stimulus plan went into effect and the money started going out.

Third, if jobs are so important to him, why didn't he put stimulus money into programs that would create jobs soon, rather than long term government programs that take years to plan?

Fourth, did it not occur to you that corporations would not add employees until they saw what this major overhaul of the health industry would cost them?

You could see by the way the Democrats got to their feet when he announced it, that the congressmen were relieved he was pitching it.

Otherwise, their constiuents are more likely to pitch them in the mid terms.