State of the Union

Just didn't get much out of the State of the Union address that I wasn't already aware of.

It just seems that most of the positive trends started under the previous administration and have continued despite current efforts.  Obviously that not completely true, but considering how little has been done in the last two years, its true more than false.

The economy is doing OK, not great, just OK.  It was in free fall in 2008 and 2009 and the actions designed to save it worked, although not immediately.  Also some areas are going to be permanently changed and the low skilled high paid manufacturing jobs are a thing of the past.  Most of those people have been forced to find lower paying service jobs which has reduced their standard of living.  Skilled people are in fact doing well, but they already were.

What is needed is a push to open new industries for the future and provide better skills training in our schools.

We just don't have a border crisis and the efforts to say we do are simply misspent effort.  We do have a potential infrastructure crisis, and we need to start fixing it, but so far despite rhetoric, no significant progress has been made.

What's going on in foreign policy is a real mixed bag and the war against ISIS is hardly over.  The strategies of the last two years were continuation of what we were already doing.  We may have prompted some additional NATO spending, or else it was prompted by more uncertainty in Europe. We see Russia continue its aggressive policies and we have pulled out of a nuclear treaty that may have been ineffective but now its non-existent.  In Asia, we have heightened tensions with China in Trade and territory disputes and maybe some improvement with North Korea (or maybe not).

We haven't seen any real progress in health care or prescription drugs and its unlikely that we will.  I hope I am wrong on this but I don't think I am.

He asked for bipartisanship but his view of that is that everyone do what he wants.

He touched on some hot button issues like abortion, making the courts more conservative, reducing regulations that are clearly partisan issues.  He seems to be aware that he has to reach our a bit past his base if he hopes to get re-elected, but not sure he knows how.

Time will tell.