So you think George W. Bush is not a conservative?

ED. NOTE: On Tuesday evening, January 20, 2004, the President of the United States gave one of the most conservative State of the Union addresses in at least a generation. For a SOTU speech, it had a remarkably short spending wish list. Instead, it had passages such as those excerpted below — none of which would have been spoken by a Democrat or liberal (i.e., Leftist), or even a "RINO." Check it out:

Our greatest responsibility is the active defense of the American people. Twenty-eight months have passed since September 11th, 2001 — over two years without an attack on American soil. And it is tempting to believe that the danger is behind us. That hope is understandable, comforting — and false.

The once all-powerful ruler of Iraq was found in a hole, and now sits in a prison cell. Of the top 55 officials of the former regime, we have captured or killed 45. Our forces are on the offensive, leading over 1,600 patrols a day and conducting an average of 180 raids a week. We are dealing with these thugs in Iraq, just as surely as we dealt with Saddam Hussein's evil regime.

Because of American leadership and resolve, the world is changing for the better. Last month, the leader of Libya voluntarily pledged to disclose and dismantle all of his regime's weapons of mass destruction programs, including a uranium enrichment project for nuclear weapons.

Nine months of intense negotiations involving the United States and Great Britain succeeded with Libya, while 12 years of diplomacy with Iraq did not. And one reason is clear: For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible, and no one can now doubt the word of America.

Many of our troops are listening tonight. And I want you and your families to know: America is proud of you. And my administration, and this Congress, will give you the resources you need to fight and win the war on terror.

I know that some people question if America is really in a war at all. They view terrorism more as a crime, a problem to be solved mainly with law enforcement and indictments. After the World Trade Center was first attacked in 1993, some of the guilty were indicted and tried and convicted, and sent to prison. But the matter was not settled. The terrorists were still training and plotting in other nations, and drawing up more ambitious plans. After the chaos and carnage of September the 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers. The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States, and war is what they got.

Some critics have said our duties in Iraq must be internationalized. This particular criticism is hard to explain to our partners in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands — (applause) — Norway, El Salvador, and the 17 other countries that have committed troops to Iraq. As we debate at home, we must never ignore the vital contributions of our international partners, or dismiss their sacrifices.

From the beginning, America has sought international support for our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we have gained much support. There is a difference, however, between leading a coalition of many nations, and submitting to the objections of a few. America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country.

We also hear doubts that democracy is a realistic goal for the greater Middle East, where freedom is rare. Yet it is mistaken, and condescending, to assume that whole cultures and great religions are incompatible with liberty and self-government. I believe that God has planted in every human heart the desire to live in freedom. And even when that desire is crushed by tyranny for decades, it will rise again.

In the last three years, adversity has also revealed the fundamental strengths of the American economy. We have come through recession, and terrorist attack, and corporate scandals, and the uncertainties of war. And because you acted to stimulate our economy with tax relief, this economy is strong, and growing stronger.

You have doubled the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000, reduced the marriage penalty, begun to phase out the death tax, reduced taxes on capital gains and stock dividends, cut taxes on small businesses, and you have lowered taxes for every American who pays income taxes.

Americans took those dollars and put them to work, driving this economy forward. The pace of economic growth in the third quarter of 2003 was the fastest in nearly 20 years; new home construction, the highest in almost 20 years; home ownership rates, the highest ever. Manufacturing activity is increasing. Inflation is low. Interest rates are low. Exports are growing. Productivity is high, and jobs are on the rise.

These numbers confirm that the American people are using their money far better than government would have — and you were right to return it.

We're requiring higher standards [in schools]. We are regularly testing every child on the fundamentals. We are reporting results to parents, and making sure they have better options when schools are not performing.

We must continue to pursue an aggressive, pro-growth economic agenda. Congress has some unfinished business on the issue of taxes. The tax reductions you passed are set to expire. Unless you act — (applause) — unless you act — unless you act, the unfair tax on marriage will go back up. Unless you act, millions of families will be charged $300 more in federal taxes for every child. Unless you act, small businesses will pay higher taxes. Unless you act, the death tax will eventually come back to life. Unless you act, Americans face a tax increase. What Congress has given, the Congress should not take away. For the sake of job growth, the tax cuts you passed should be permanent.

Our agenda for jobs and growth must help small business owners and employees with relief from needless federal regulation, and protect them from junk and frivolous lawsuits.

Consumers and businesses need reliable supplies of energy to make our economy run — so I urge you to pass legislation to modernize our electricity system, promote conservation, and make America less dependent on foreign sources of energy.

My administration is promoting free and fair trade to open up new markets for America's entrepreneurs and manufacturers and farmers — to create jobs for American workers. Younger workers should have the opportunity to build a nest egg by saving part of their Social Security taxes in a personal retirement account. We should make the Social Security system a source of ownership for the American people.

In two weeks, I will send you a budget that funds the war, protects the homeland, and meets important domestic needs, while limiting the growth in discretionary spending to less than 4 percent. This will require that Congress focus on priorities, cut wasteful spending, and be wise with the people's money. By doing so, we can cut the deficit in half over the next five years.

Tonight, I also ask you to reform our immigration laws so they reflect our values and benefit our economy.

I oppose amnesty, because it would encourage further illegal immigration, and unfairly reward those who break our laws. My temporary worker program will preserve the citizenship path for those who respect the law, while bringing millions of hardworking men and women out from the shadows of American life.

[ED. NOTE: The precedent for guest worker programs goes back at least to the Eisenhower administration.]

In January of 2006, seniors can get prescription drug coverage under Medicare. For a monthly premium of about $35, most seniors who do not have that coverage today can expect to see their drug bills cut roughly in half. Under this reform, senior citizens will be able to keep their Medicare just as it is, or they can choose a Medicare plan that fits them best — just as you, as members of Congress, can choose an insurance plan that meets your needs. And starting this year, millions of Americans will be able to save money tax-free for their medical expenses in a health savings account.

On the critical issue of health care, our goal is to ensure that Americans can choose and afford private health care coverage that best fits their individual needs.

Small businesses should be able to band together and negotiate for lower insurance rates, so they can cover more workers with health insurance. I urge you to pass association health plans. I ask you to give lower-income Americans a refundable tax credit that would allow millions to buy their own basic health insurance.

To protect the doctor-patient relationship, and keep good doctors doing good work, we must eliminate wasteful and frivolous medical lawsuits. And tonight I propose that individuals who buy catastrophic health care coverage, as part of our new health savings accounts, be allowed to deduct 100 percent of the premiums from their taxes.

A government-run health care system is the wrong prescription. By keeping costs under control, expanding access, and helping more Americans afford coverage, we will preserve the system of private medicine that makes America's health care the best in the world.

One of the worst decisions our children can make is to gamble their lives and futures on drugs. Our government is helping parents confront this problem with aggressive education, treatment, and law enforcement. Drug use in high school has declined by 11 percent over the last two years. Four hundred thousand fewer young people are using illegal drugs than in the year 2001.

A strong America must also value the institution of marriage. I believe we should respect individuals as we take a principled stand for one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our civilization. Congress has already taken a stand on this issue by passing the Defense of Marriage Act, signed in 1996 by President Clinton. That statute protects marriage under federal law as a union of a man and a woman, and declares that one state may not redefine marriage for other states.

Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. On an issue of such great consequence, the people's voice must be heard. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.

It's also important to strengthen our communities by unleashing the compassion of America's religious institutions. Religious charities of every creed are doing some of the most vital work in our country — mentoring children, feeding the hungry, taking the hand of the lonely. Yet government has often denied social service grants and contracts to these groups, just because they have a cross or a Star of David or a crescent on the wall. By executive order, I have opened billions of dollars in grant money to competition that includes faith-based charities. Tonight I ask you to codify this into law, so people of faith can know that the law will never discriminate against them again.

The momentum of freedom in our world is unmistakable — and it is not carried forward by our power alone. We can trust in that greater power who guides the unfolding of the years. And in all that is to come, we can know that His purposes are just and true.

Your only alternative is Kerry/Dean/Clark/Edwards.
Do you actually believe that you will get MORE CONSERVATIVE ACCOMPLISHMENTS with any of them??

You guys who threaten not to vote for Bush because he hasn't done enough for YOU need to start to think about the COUNTRY above your own egos!

Political pundits have a name for that kind of self-indulgent and self-absorbed action which makes one feeeeel good, but is ineffective and unproductive.

a new temporary worker program to match willing foreign workers with willing employers when no Americans can be found to fill the job. This reform will be good for our economy because employers will find needed workers in an honest and orderly system. A temporary worker program will help protect our homeland, allowing Border Patrol and law enforcement to focus on true threats to our national security.

Or in English, let's give illegals jobs so that more of them can come it.

Feh.

Bush has lost the faith of a lot of people with crap like this.

No matter how you sugar coat it, the "guest worker" program is nothing short of amnesty, pure and simple.

We have to deal with illegals and the threat posed by the porous Mexican border. Giving illegals free access to jobs is not the way to do it, period.

Just damn.

If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...

I received the entire SOTU address from Bush-Cheney 04, and I'm kind of sitting here in awe. I understand that some people say, "this is a hill I will die on", but some people wake up every morning saying "where's a hill I can die on?" When PatB left the Republican party, he immediately went to Ross Perot's old party and blew it apart. At some point in time you have to wonder whether it's better to have somebody throwing rocks at you inside your house or outside your house.

I don't think Bush has ever represented himself as anything other than what he is, and I voted for him twice for governor and I'm going to vote for him twice for President. On the amnesty thing, we've got people saying they won't vote for Bush over it, but if a Democrat gets in, their only complaint is that the plan doesn't go far enough. Protest votes are a flawed strategy.

BTW, to those who call me a Bushbot, I agree with him on more issues than I agree with you.

I think the most serious problem to getting out a GOP vote this year will be overcoming Bush's support for his don't-call-it-amnesty policy. And the tremendous expansion in spending and the money squandered on the Department of Education and other liberal moneywasters. The SOTU threw a bone to the religious right on banning sodomite marriage but it won't be enough unless Bush really pushes for a constitutional amendment.

But it's the amnesty that will hurt the most in '04. The big-spending grousing will disappear as the economy recovers more.

I don't think any of these issues will make any great number of conservatives or religious righters switch to voting Dim, Libertarian, Constitution Pary, etc.

They'll just stay home. Like 3 million evangelicals did in 2000. Rove is still wailing about it and has no solution, it seems. I expect even more stay-at-homes this time around.

Bush did very well to recess-appoint Pickering. He needs to follow up with the other two appointments the Dims blocked as well. We were promised conservative Scalia-style judges in 2000. He needs to appoint the other two and do it now.

He signed the PBA ban, and has been more aggressively pro-Life than Reagan.

He will get us permanent tax cuts, which Reagan did not.

He is as, or more Conservative in supporting the military and on illegal immigration.

He has gotten accountability into school funding.

And both of them made compromises to reach the higher goal.

Precedent for guest worker programs goes back to August 4, 1942, when the U.S. and the Mexican governments instituted the Bracero program. Thousands of impoverished Mexicans abandoned their rural communities and headed north to work as braceros.

Over a decade later, on April 28, 1956, the El Paso Herald Post said, "More than 80,000 braceros pass through the El Paso Center annually. They're part of an army of 350,000 or more that marches across the border each year to help plant, cultivate and harvest cotton and other crops throughout the United States".

In the mid-1980's, President Ronald Wilson Reagan signed the first bona fide blanket amnesty for illegal aliens in American history. Unfortunately, rather than reduce the flow of illegal aliens, it encouraged a flood of new illegal immigration.

So, as history shows, this is a problem with a long history and precedents set by other presidents. It is a problem inherited by this president. In a post-9/11 world, the question is: What do we do with the millions of illegals already here? President Bush's proposal of a guest worker program most defintely is NOT an amnesty. Rather, it is a modernized form of the old Bracero program. It will be debated in Congress — and can be defeated there if its opponents work vigorously enough.

To reiterate, the title is President of the United States, not president of any particular political party or ideology. Any president will call each issue like he sees it. It is a sign of character and courage in a president if he calls an issue in a way he knows is unpopular. Our system of government provides plenty of opportunity to defeat unpopular proposals by any president. It doesn't require a break with the president, either. All the people have to do is stop whining on forums like this, get off their duffs, and work to defeat it.

"You guys who threaten not to vote for Bush because he hasn't done enough for YOU need to start to think about the COUNTRY above your own egos!"

So it is our own egos that we are thinking about when we oppose increasing the size of governement, amnesty for illegals, protecting the Constitution, etc. I thought we were doing it because we were thinking about the country. I think you need to take off the blinders and see the big picture. Use some common sense, how does being against these things relate to egos?

Question:

Why do you keep the screen name Bikers4Bush? Makes no sense to me since you are going around the threads trashing Pres Bush about his not being conservative and you are not voting for him.

This is an excellent article about President Bush and his Conservatism along with the fact that we have a President who is also compassionate and believes that EVERY American deserves an opportunity for success.

My first amendment rights have not been trampled on because I can still post on Free Republic and challenge posters who declare that President Bush is not conservative and will not be voting for him unless he changes. He is not going to change because when he proposes something, he does it from his heart not by sticking a finger in the wind to see which way the wind is blowing.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt if there were a little more compassion around here towards our fellow man who just may need a helping hand. Someday you or someone you know may be on the receiving end of some of these programs that Pres Bush has proposed to make America a better place to live for all of us.

I feel very privileged to have been born in America and have the rights of being an American citizen. Many people around the world would give anything to be living in this great Country. That is one reason we have the problems we have today with number of people wanting to come here legally and those that come illegally. If we didn't have such a great Country, people wouldn't be flocking to America.

My Dad's Family came to this Country before the Revolutionary War and settled in Virginia because they wanted a better life. Guess if you were an Indian, you would say that my Family came here illegally!

If evangelical Christians stay home, they are not being true to their faith, and they are being lousy Americans on top of it.

Bush has well over 90% of the support of Republicans.....his BASE.....and he has NOT lost them (us) because of immigration.

He may have lost the fringes of the right, but he never 'had' them to begin with. The rest of us are bright enough to understand that we will disagree on issues with ANY President, and don't threaten to abandon him if he goes 'astray' from our litmus list.

Most of this "I won't vote for him NOW" stuff going on here is BUNK.

Excuse him, he didn't know the rules here that you can't EVER say anything positive about W on Free Republic. You "Conservatives" know everybody here goose steps in unison over W's liberal ways. He overspends just like Reagan did, mostly on the military.

He has an illegal worker program which everyone here misnames/lies amnesty like the Rats. Please explain how we can get migrant workers to pick our crops without Mexicans?? You ready to sacrifice our farmers??? If you can really answer that to me I will vote for YAAAWN Spend & Kerry too!

Pray for W and The Truth

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