The Real State of the Union

From Democrats.org (and then it is back to the movie untl Jon Stewart's on:
The Real State of the Union: 2005
WEAKENING OUR NATION, ABANDONING OUR NATION’S PROTECTORS
The tab for Bush’s Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is currently $277 Billion and counting. [Washington Post, 1/26/05]

Bush’s plans in Iraq call for troops to be in the Middle East for years. Armed Forces specialists plan on keeping 120,000 American soldiers deployed in Iraq until at least 2006. [Washington Post, 1/25/05]

The President says that he will honor our veterans. Meanwhile, according to The Washington Post, 300,000 veterans are still waiting for necessary health care treatment. [Washington Post, 10/3/04]

FAILING TO CREATE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL AMERICANS
To pay for Bush’s misguided economic agenda, the country’s debt has soared. Experts recently announced that Bush’s growing $8 trillion dollar debt translates to roughly $26,000 per person. [Treasury Department; www.house.gov/budget_democrats]

While advocating the need to create economic opportunity for all, President Bush has presided over an economic record that includes the loss of over a million jobs since he took office. [Bureau of Labor Statistics]

President Bush will hail his own commitment to creating opportunity for Americans, but the legacy of his first term is that 4.3 million more Americans are now in poverty. [Census Bureau, Current Population Survey]

Bush’s most recent budget passed by Congress fell $9.8 billion short of Bush’s commitment to reform America’s schools. Overall, the Republicans have fallen $27 billion short of the funding for local schools promised in the No Child Left Behind Act. [House Democratic Leader’s Office, 1/7/05]

ABANDONING OUR NATION’S HEALTH
The President’s repeated commitments to health care are simply more lip service. Rather than reducing the number of people without coverage during his first term, 5.2 million more people are uninsured today than in 2000. [Census Bureau, Current Population Survey]

Under Bush, consumers’ medical bills grew 7.6 percent in 2003, the fastest growing area of health care spending. And meanwhile, Bush’s health care proposals do nothing to control soaring health care costs. [Pharma Marketletter, 1/12/05]

More than 130 million Americans breathe dirty, unhealthy air. Instead of working to change this, Bush’s “Clear Skies” legislation would protect polluters and undermine further progress. [Washington Post, 12/14/04; www.cleartheair.org]