-By Warner Todd Huston
I just finished a conference call with Karl Rove from the White House and thought I’d pass on the most pertinent points Rove revealed about the president’s upcoming speech.
The president will inform us that he will not bring us most of his economic news until next week in two different speeches. but he will mention that we are in the 41st month of uninterrupted growth.
He will also call for a balance budget in 5 yrs without raising taxes and discuss the wild spending in Congress called earmarks.
But, Rove gave us much of nothing about the economy, so it is apparent that Bush won’t focus on it during his speech.
Health care
Rove said that health care will be a major focus of the State of the Union speech and that he will introduce a new way to help Americans buy insurance through private means.
-level playing field between big companies that can buy insurance and individuals by instituting a tax advantage for individuals to buy insurance.
-fist $15,0000 of private income will be tax free if you buy private health insurance
-Bush says he’ll veto the Democrats new health car drug plan
Energy
On energy, Rove said Bush will go back to discussions of new technology.
-reduce gasoline usage over next 10 years with new technology
-push new tech
-use of hydrocarbons to be pushed
-increase domestic production of oil
Judges
Bush will encourage Congress to give judges prompt hearings.
Iraq
-He’ll tell congress to offer their plan a path to victory if they don’t like his
-benchmarks will be observed for Iraq
Minimum Wage
As to the minimum wage hike being pushed by the Democrat controlled House he said that any increase must be tied to tax cuts for small business to offset the wage increase. But, Rove noted that 70% of workers that make minimum wage already live in a state where the minimum is higher than the Federal requirement. So he is basically saying that this issue is a smoke screen to make it appear that the Democrats are “doing something”.
Immigration
Rove was asked about immigration, and it was apparent that Bush won;t be adding anything new to that debate.
Bush will claim we are making moves to control border, but that we cannot completely secure the it unless we “reduce pressure on the border” and that means he’ll go back to discussing the guest worker program.
thus ended the call.
What I will find interesting will be the comportment of the democrats in this speech. Will they give the president a respectful hearing, or will they sit on their hands or otherwise be uncivil?
We’ll soon see.
Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, men’snewsdaily.com and americandaily.com among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a guest on several radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
I was on that call as well and to be quite honest… I’m disgusted.
“Rove was asked about immigration, and it was apparent that Bush won;t be adding anything new to that debate.
Bush will claim we are making moves to control border, but that we cannot completely secure the it unless we “reduce pressure on the border” and that means he’ll go back to discussing the guest worker program.”
Carl Rove, while very interesting to listen to in an open environment such as that conference call, knows how to dance around an issue and that’s exactly what he did with the immigration issue.
It’s becoming more and more clearer that Bush is an Internationalist.
I agree about the “nothing new” point you made. I think they are focusing on health care because they know Hillary is making it a big issue and thy want to undercut her.
I have to say, though, I like the health care plan they talked about.
As to immigration, it’s obvious Rove spent more time talking about it in the conference call than Bush actually will in the speech!
I have to say, I see this speech as being empty of anything exciting or new save for the health care initiatives.