President Bush is to be applauded for pushing several free-market domestic initiatives in last night’s speech. The President’s economic points were right on the mark: we need a balanced budget (without raising taxes), earmark reform, and entitlement reform to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Bush’s push away from universal health care and toward individual choice is also a move in the right direction. Reducing the tax burden for individual insurance coverage will allow for increased flexibility in our healthcare decisions. Bush drove this point home saying, “We must remember that the best healthcare decisions are made not by government and insurance companies, but by patients and their doctors.” That was one of the best quotes of the night. I wish Bush had spent more time devoted to entitlement reform — to push the new Congress to action on Social Security. Otherwise, Bush’s attitude toward the new Democratic majority was entirely appropriate. He managed to walk the fine line between being conciliatory and standing his ground (he did an especially good job of this balance in regards to the war on terror).
