Tomorrow Night’s State of the Union and What Won’t Be Said

Tomorrow President Barack Obama will address the nation in his first State of the Union address. He will address the nation on the heels of a new poll showing that only 26% of those polled strongly approve of what President Obama has done so far in the White House.

Some news reports say that the President will focus on the nation’s budget deficit. According to Monday’s New York Times, “President Obama will call for a three-year freeze in spending on many domestic programs, and for increases no greater than inflation after that, an initiative intended to signal his seriousness about cutting the budget deficit, administration officials said Monday.”

Locally, the Grand Rapids Press today has a story with area reactions to the President’s plan to talk about “middle class tax relief” in tomorrow’s State of the Union address. The Press also published today a short piece from the Associated Press that, like the NY Times, focuses on what the President will say about the budget deficit.

WOOD TV 8 posted the same AP story on their website today and WOOD Radio is featuring on their main page a story similar to the GR Press, one that focuses on the President’s proposed tax cuts for the middle class.

The international media has a different take on what President Obama will address tomorrow in his State of the Union address. The Guardian reported that the President might scale back some of his plans considering low approval ratings and last week’s Massachusetts election defeat. “Although the White House denied Obama was scaling back his plans, the tone will be more populist and tightly focused on jobs and the economy.”

The Guardian also reported that the President might downplay the importance of climate legislation or omit that issue completely from his address tomorrow night.

With all the stated focus on budget deficits and tax relief for the middle class, one independent journalist is pointing out why there is no discussion of the bloated US military budget. Glenn Greenwald points out that while the President is calling for spending freezes in regards to domestic programs, but not in the area of military spending.

Greenwald says, “all security-related programs are exempted from the freeze, which means it does not apply to military spending, the intelligence budget, the Surveillance State, or foreign military aid.  As always, the notion of decreasing the deficit and national debt through reductions in military spending is one of the most absolute Washington taboos.”

According to the group Global Security, the US spends about the same on the military as the rest of the world’s countries do combined. This is an incredible fact, but the question is why this is not an issue for most US reporters considering the nation is faced with major economic and budgetary issues? It is certainly a question to think about while watching or listening to the President tomorrow night. We should all pay attention to see if military spending comes up and if the news coverage of the speech raises that issue.