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News & Analysis | REG•WATCH Blog | Press Room
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
State of the Union's Unmet Needs
Our country must also remain on the offensive against terrorism here at home. The enemy has not lost the desire or capability to attack us.
But let's not be prepared for the worst.
Every year of my presidency, we have reduced the growth of non-security discretionary spending — and last year you passed bills that cut this spending. This year my budget will cut it again, and reduce or eliminate more than 140 programs that are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities.
Umm, no: the White House claims to measure program performance with a tool called PART (Program Assessment Rating Tool), which measures nothing but political caprice. (Don't be surprised -- it's all part of the game for an administration that is captive to corporate special interests.)
Keeping America competitive requires us to open more markets for all that Americans make and grow. One out of every five factory jobs in America is related to global trade, and we want people everywhere to buy American. With open markets and a level playing field, no one can out-produce or out-compete the American worker.
Hmm. Maybe the administration has finally realized that destructive global trade agreements harm our workers and impede the competitiveness of U.S.-based companies -- not regulation. (I'm not counting on it, but I dream.)
Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.
Right. Except that the administration has not done enough to wean us from this dependence by, say, improving fuel economy.
A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, and that recognize the matchless value of every life.
Except we're not a very hopeful society as long as we insist that basic protections be subject to cost-benefit analyses, in which the value of a human life is reduced to DOLLARS and weighed alongside industry compliance costs, despite the inherent lack of moral equivalence between the two.
Oh, and those lives saved a year from now, a decade from now, a century from now? Discounted to the present value! With discounting at a 5% rate, one life saved today is worth more than a billion lives saved 500 years from now.
Matchless value? Not when they're translated into dollar values and treated as fungible as actual dollars.
Ethical corners? Don't forget that EPA is creating policies for information from testing pesticides on humans.
A hopeful society gives special attention to children who lack direction and love.
But our society >doesn't even know if abused and neglected children in foster care are being seen by caseworkers.
The State of the Union tonight is one of many unmet needs. And this administration continues in its pattern of failure to address them.
Posted by Robert Shull
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