State of the Hypocrisy

The State of the Union address is a tiresome and bombastic charade. While fulfilling a constitutional obligation, we've officially jumped the shark.

There is some great historical information on the address here. Most notably, the shortest State of the Union was by George Washington in 1790.

The underrated Calvin Coolidge was the first to deliver the address on the radio in 1923 and Ronald Reagan was the first to bring acknowledged guests - a process that has been abused with political props. So, unfortunately, some Republican heavyweights have indeed started some of the traditions that bring us to the spectacle that it is today. It has reached such a point that I don't even care to watch. But last night, I did anyway.

Now, there is a lot of dumb stuff to parse through and nitpick in Biden's speech. From taking credit for declining inflation (which he caused in the first place), to hailing job growth (which coming out of COVID was inevitable), to spatting with Republicans over social security being off-limits (the math doesn't pan out there), to celebrating various parts of the Inflation Reduction Act (healthcare and environmental policy have what to do with inflation?), this could be a point by point breakdown of the speech but I'll leave that to better writers and policy experts.

The one part I want to focus on is when Biden celebrated the investment in infrastructure, but he had a special message to our Rep. Dan Newhouse and other Republicans who voted no:

"And to my Republican friends who voted against it but still ask to fund projects in their districts, don’t worry.

I promised to be the president for all Americans.

We’ll fund your projects. And I’ll see you at the ground-breaking."

Dan Newhouse has indeed requested funding for infrastructure projects. Joe Biden and other Democrats think this is a smirk-inducing opportunity to dunk on supposed hypocrisy. This is, frankly, infuriating. I hate this with a fire of a thousand suns. Dan Newhouse outlined his broader objections in the Yakima-Herald, so I won't rehash all of that outside of this quote:

"While many of the projects included in the BIF —including the East-West (Corridor) Project — were ones I fought for, and will continue to fight for, in my role on the House Appropriations Committee, the greater ramifications passing this bill would have on Central Washington communities made this a package I ultimately could not support."

He had reasons to vote against the bill. Once the bill passed, it became law of the land. Dan Newhouse then works within the system as it exists. You might say he's "living in the world." Do Democrats refuse to personally accept tax cuts that they themselves voted against?