State of the what?

Everyone is aware that President Biden last night (7 Mar 2024) delivered a State of the Union Address. Today, plenty of political pundits will be pontificating about the plethora of platitudes and prevarications promulgated by the President. Many will be fact-checking the falsehoods forwarded by Mr. Biden. I will not do this; I do not wish to simply be another voice in the din.

I am going to take a broader view and paint with broader strokes as I address the SOTU. Yes, the President repeated (ad nauseam) many of the lies he’s been telling since 2020 (and some since long before). Discussing these in detail at this point is…well…pointless.

First, let me address perhaps the biggest elephant in the room, one I have spoken of with others several times over, and which many may really not recognize. The State of the Union should not be broadcast/telecast. Look at the quote above from the State of the Union:

“He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” – U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 3

The President’s Constitutional duty is to provide a report to Congress, not to the people. The problem this creates, as was quite evident last night, is that the speech, instead of a report on the actual condition of our country, becomes a pep rally. Instead of addressing Congress, the President ends up spending much time addressing the people and attempting to sell his job performance as better than those who have gone before.

In addition, last night’s speech in particular became more like a ball game than the solemn and serious event intended by our founding fathers. The chanting by many in Congress was so unbecoming as to be repugnant. Worst, because of the temporal proximity to this year’s polls, it became an election campaign stump. This is not at all the purpose of the State of the Union, and any factual information, anything based on true statistics and verifiable data is completely lost.

The purpose of the SOTU being undermined results in other consequences. Arguably more than 90% of what the President discussed lies outside the Constitutional purview of the federal government. The federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in healthcare. The federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in education. The federal government has no constitutional authority to interfere or invest in private enterprise. The federal government has no constitutional authority (nor responsibility) to create jobs (which it can’t do aside from hiring government employees). There is so much that was discussed for which the federal government has no constitutional authority, but it gets cheered because most Americans are simply unaware of what the Constitution says or the very limited authority it grants the federal government.

The President prattled on and on about things he is going to do that have nothing to do with his duties as President. Yet this is what happens with a State of the Union as a result of being broadcast. As much as I hate for we the people to be “left out”, to have government do anything behind closed doors, I would prefer the SOTU be delivered solely to Congress and then a report issued to the people after. It would completely change the tone and content of the speech.

So, the President promises to do things that, not only does he not have authority to do, but that, even if he did, he could not accomplish. As an example, the government can’t manage the economy. The economy does best when it is permitted to manage itself and the government does not interfere. To suggest that the government can somehow improve the economy is one of the most oft repeated fabrications in politics.

Lastly, the multitude of mendacities regarding our DemocracyTM are, at best, divisive. Libeling half of the country’s population (as the left is wont to do) benefits no one. As is typical in politics (this doesn’t just happen on the left), projection is the order of the day. Much of what the President stated regarding his political opponents is that of which his party is guilty, especially being a danger to “democracy.” It is the left that is trying to prevent the people from voting for a candidate of their choice. It is the left that fomented violent riots during from 2016 through 2020. It is the left that is more often than not responsible for “mass shootings.” It is the left that tries to rule by fiat. People need to see through the subterfuge and get at the substance of which, in this speech (and most SOTUs that I’ve heard in at least the past two decades), there was little.

It would be truly wondrous if the State of the Union actually addressed the state of the Union and was not a Congressional clambake. It would be amazing to hear a factual accounting of the condition of our GDP, international trade, the security of our borders (and who has responsibility and power to address it), the national debt and deficit and how it will actually be dealt with (rather than bull… bluster about how the deficit has been cut by $1 trillion) and inflation (which is caused by, not reduced by, government being involved in the economy). Instead, we get pap and pablum about the government planning to do that which it shouldn’t a la campaign promises (and opposition- blaming). This is not your founding fathers’ State of the Union.