The Speech Rephrased January 31, 2018January 31, 2018 There was much to like in the President’s State of the Union address last night — just as there was much to like in his campaign speeches. Who would not be for “great health care for everybody at a tiny fraction of the cost”? It’s not clear to me how much of the good stuff he will achieve or how he will pay for it. And much of what he said last night was overstated. Here is CNN’s attempt at fact checking. But there are other things he might have said, but didn’t. For example, he could have said this: The state of the Union is precarious. In my first year I have: 1. Told more than 2000 public lies or falsehoods. 2. Ended the American Century and abdicated our leadership of the world. 3. Plunged the nation into economic peril through what is — according to Reagan budget director David Stockman — a massively irresponsible tax cut at exactly the wrong time in the business cycle. (We will be running a $1.2 trillion deficit in the tenth year of a recovery!)* 4. Prioritized those lower taxes on the rich — including real estate developers like me — over borrowing that same money to employ millions of Americans at good jobs revitalizing our infrastructure. 5. Denied and ignored the massive and ongoing attack on our democracy ordered by a former KGB operative with whom I enjoy a warm relationship and against whose country I have refused to impose the sanctions mandated by Congress. 6. Ceded economic leadership in the Pacific to China. 7. Taken credit for the low unemployment and steadily improving economy I inherited (slightly more jobs were added in Obama’s last year than my first). 8. Decimated the State Department, hobbled the Environmental Protection Agency, neutered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and put agencies like HUD and the Departments of Education and of Energy in the hands of people with no expertise. 9. Destabilized the health insurance market in ways that will lead to higher premiums and more uninsured (despite my promise of “great health care for everybody at a tiny fraction of the cost”). 10. Demonized the free press, the FBI, and our intelligence community. 11. Widened inequality, praised as “very fine people” torch-bearing white supremacists, set an example of incivility for your children. 12. Solicited contributions to my campaign with the promise of running your name over the live stream of this State of the Union address. No president in history has thought to cheapen and politicize the presidency that way, but then neither has a president embarrassed America on the world stage as I have. And if the —-holes of the world don’t like it, —- ’em. There’s more, but that’s enough for now. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. *If you own stocks — let alone on margin as one of my friends does (true story: he took out the margin debt to buy Bitcoin) — click that David Stockman link above. A cautionary note.