[dson7_ck1249]

Interesting, because I certainly got the impression that many of the things Bush was proposing on Tuesday would require an expansion of government, not the limiting of it. I might vote Republican, but my orientation is certainly conservative. As a general rule, the less government there is...the better. What we need is a strengthening of civil society, a greater emphasis on individual responsibility and less inclinations toward a nanny state.

[Bommer]

Thats all they are...promises! Bush can suggest it. Whether or not it gets implimented is another story! Welcome to FR BTW

[peyton randolph]

dson7_ck1249

Since Jan 30, 2006

Is that a DU code? If so, care to post the master sheet so that we can have the Viking Kitties ready to pounce?

[Siena Dreaming]

The Executive is supposed to execute (put into effect) legislation.

I'm starting to think the ball is in Congress' court. They need to write some expense-cutting legislation and give it to the President to sign. Hastert needs to get it moving IMO.

[Siena Dreaming]

The Executive is supposed to execute (put into effect) legislation.

I'm starting to think the ball is in Congress' court. They need to write some expense-cutting legislation and give it to the President to sign. Hastert needs to get it moving IMO.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"What we need is a strengthening of civil society, a greater emphasis on individual responsibility and less inclinations toward a nanny state."

Can't argue with you there. Welcome to FR.

[af_vet_rr]

Interesting, because I certainly got the impression that many of the things Bush was proposing on Tuesday would require an expansion of government, not the limiting of it.

Novak brings up the education bit, and he's absolutely right on that - when No Child Left Behind was introduced, most Conservatives had a hard time with it, because it was the beginning of a big expansion of the federal government's power, in regards to what was traditionally handled at the state (and usually at the local level).

We are creating a generation of kids that are taught to pass tests, rather than to actually learn (and I don't blame the teachers - if somebody told me that my job, or my school's funding was on the line if my kids don't pass the test, I would ignore everything else in order to make sure they passed the test).

[Paul Ross]

However, what bothered conservatives most about Tuesday night's performance was not what the president failed to do but what he actually did.

Agreed. There were a number of times he frankly was attempting to lambaste the conservatives in trade and immigration.

In immigration, while not explicitly reiterating his failed Guest Worker plan, clearly he is still tying it to any border enforcement efforts. His rhetoric about the U.S. needing "comprehensive reform" and needing immigrants was his way of saying he hasn't learned a thing...and he is more stubborn than a democrat Mule. He intends to keep right at his scofflaw illegal alien defending and amnestying behavior.

In trade, his rhetoric approached real stridency. Trying to link conservatives with cowardice. Meanwhile, it is the President who is steadfastly APPEASING RED CHINA . He is blindly refusing to admit his trade failures... quanitified by the soon-to-be trillon $ trade deficit...and China's communist tyrants pointed humiliation of the U.S. President. They explicitly smirked at his lack of power over them...symbolically shooting in massacre fashion any protesters, and then after he left town, announcing that almost all their airplane orders would go to Airbus instead of the superior planes, the Boeing's.

The President, while talking up new energy alternative R&D, frankly is also continuing to appease the JIHADISTS with Saudi Arabia. A tough foreign policy line with them is warranted. But its not going to happen.

The President had the gall to imply that nationalists wanted to "retreat" from trade and go into "isolationism." These are classic, LIBERAL, expletives against CONSERVATIVES.

And they are counterfactual in the current circumstances, as nothing that they imply is further from the truth of today's realities. What in fact is cloaked by this attempted rhetorical jui-jitsu, is the fact that the ADMINISTRATION IS IN RETREAT FROM REALITY.

We are in a trade war.

Right now. And we are losing do to the lack of national response to other nation's predatory practices.

And the results of 12 succesive years of losing this trade war means our defense capabilities are seriously faltering and endangered in the future when we need to recapitalize...our F-15s need updated replacement. Our nuclear subs and carriers need to be timely replaced. It will now take until 2017 before the next generation carrier can be produced. And the schedule for that is slipping. Those who brag on our defense advantages are not in the industry, and don't what they are talking about...as the industry implodes...and costs go through the roof due to the lack of an efficient underlying commercial industrial base to support it domestically...and the willingness to fund sufficient orders to achieve economies of scale...and make a real quantitative difference in the prospective battle environments.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Maybe conservatives SHOULD be mad at the speech, but I haven't seen it. We're pretty conservative here and the poll suggest we were very happy.

Novak must have a different set of conservative buddies.

BTW, I don't think Bush's energy plan has to be an industrial policy, or pick winners and losers. I don't think Government does a good a job of research investment as the private sector, but I don't think it is wrong to HAVE investment in the things he mentioned (batteries and hydrogen fuel).

I'm not sure it's needed, and it probably is a waste of money, so I don't want to suggest we should be happy about it either, just it's not something that will force people to use batteries or hydrogen.

I wouldn't mind seeing government spend money to re-energize the nuclear industry, which is hurt by government allowing support for govermnent-judicial risks that companies can't accept.

[RobbyS]

As a former teachers, I know one thing: Federal Aid for education is pure pork. It results in better football stadiums, not better science classes.