State of our union

President Bush, as most of us know, delivered his final State of the Union address Monday night. Three things happened, which happen during pretty much every State of the Union address.

1. The president's party stood and applauded a lot.

2. The president laid out a lot of issues he deems important.

3. The fat lush posing as a senator from Massachusetts fell asleep five minutes into the speech.

But I'm not here to talk about Ted Kennedy.

GW talked a lot about two things in his address: the economy and Iraq. I watched more because I wanted to see what he had to say about the former than the latter, which is hardly even an issue anymore.

Two things struck me. First, this economic stimulus package. Sure, I'd like the government to give me back a few hundred dollars that was my money to begin with. I'm sure there are few among us who will tear up that check. But all the wrangling seems to be about who gets what, if any, and how much when this amounts to a piece of masking tape over a crack in a water pipe.

Yes, the economy gets a boost as people run out to spend their $300 or $600 or whatever. And after the money's spent?

Want to boost the economy? How about reining in at least a handful of the many confiscatory regulations on businesses? Try announcing the suspension of federal taxes on each gallon of gasoline. Talk about stopping inflation in its tracks. Or how about, instead of giving me back a few hundred dollars of my money now, we immediately institute a 5 percent across-the-board reduction in federal income tax? That way, we keep more of our money each and every month instead of this one-time, hide-and-go-seek ploy.

Of course, to do any of that, our federal government would have to begin practicing what each and every one of us supposedly must do to maintain a roof over our heads: Fiscal responsibility.

GW also said in his address that he would not allow this stimulus package to pass his desk if it contained the usual pork. He also said he would issue an executive order to stop discretionary spending on projects that are slipped by the thousands at the last minute without a word of debate or discussion into every bill Congress approves.

These are also known as "earmarks" ... something we all heard a lot about from Libs running for Congress 18 months or so ago. They accused Republicans of running our federal deficit through the roof with this kind of spending, even though they were as big a part of the problem. They vowed to put a stop to it, and the voters swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

And in the year since Democrats have been in control of the House and Senate, earmark spending has increased. Not only that, but when word filtered down today (Monday) that the president was going to issue such an executive order, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (the House and Senate Lib majority leaders, in case you're not sure) went ballistic.

I applaud GW for taking a stand. I'd also like to give him a swift kick in the fanny for waiting so long to wield the veto pen, but that's another story.

One other part of his address with which I want to take issue is immigration. Plugging the holes in the dam is the first part, of course. Bravo to that, although let's build the freaking fence already. The money was approved for that, what? Three years ago? And we've doubled the number of border guards, apparently. Now how about we take off their handcuffs and allow them to do their jobs?

But I leave the Bush Reservation when he gets to what we do with the millions of illegal immigrants already here. Politicians, GW included, like to use words like "compassion" and "reasonable."

Here's reasonable: Enforce our freaking laws.

People here illegally need to be dumped back wherever the hell they came from. There have been millions upon millions of people who have come to this country and gone through a process. There are millions more waiting in line, doing it the way it's supposed to be done.

The American people spoke loud and clear ... wielded their veto pen, so to speak ... when GW, a handful of RINOs (including John McCain) and the Libs attempted to back-door three separate amnesty bills on us in the last year and a half.

I say it's high time Washington listens to us for a change.

(Imported from Jan. 29, 2008)