Addressing the Addresses

Over the course of the past couple of months, there have been important speeches.

First was Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner's 2017 annual State of the State Address on January 25.  Then came his 2017 annual budget address on February 15.  (The highlighted links are to transcripts of both speeches.)

As befits a businessman, his speeches were both heavily focused on creating jobs, as well as making the Illinois state government more efficient with the aim of reducing the budget problems, ending the impasse, and putting the state in a position to prosper.

One thing that struck me in his State of the State Address was how he addressed the crisis of violent crime in Chicago, saying the remedy is to make more jobs available to give people something meaningful to do.

I noticed many references to making Illinois state government more efficient, especially in moving files into the digital realm.  And he also talked about the formation of public-private partnerships to more efficiently accomplish tasks, like roadwork on I-55.

It was also notable how many people he brought attention to, and acknowledged sitting in the gallery, especially throughout his State of the State Address, who demonstrate the kind of success that is possible in the state of Illinois, once the government gets in shape to make Illinoisans prosper, once a budget is in place, which took up much of the State of the State Address.

In his budget address, he made clear that Illinois is in a financial crisis, stifling growth that could otherwise take place, yet is poised to make a deal that will put things back into good standing again.  Much of the investments he suggested are about the big goal of fostering job growth, including education and transportation infrastructure.  It's clear that he sees the opportunity at hand to craft a budget that doesn't have to add to the burden taxpayers already face.  His take on Abraham Lincoln's quote, "It's time to think and act anew" in light of the current situation is well-put.

Then, in the waning hours of February 2017 came President Donald Trump's Address to a Joint Session of Congress--see the link for NPR's transcript.

I was struck by a distinct tone right away, with a strong focus on enhancing the United States of America.  The speech heavily emphasized how to improve the economy as a means of making the United States prosper.  And it was that topic that I sense colored everything else he discussed in the address, like crime, military spending, health care, and, most prominently I feel, immigration, which is probably his biggest issue of concern.  I heard some kind of noise mixed in with the applause on his statement about building a wall along the southern border, noise that I'm sure could have been booing of disapproval.  He even then underscored issues with immigrants with a criminal record by introducing the family members in the House gallery of people who had been murdered by immigrants who were in this country without proper status, and had committed crimes before those murders.

One thing that really struck me was how he looked ahead to the 250 year anniversary of US independence, and saying how it will be a time when the people of the USA will be prosperous, and will look back to this time, the election of Donald Trump and the start of his administration, as the time when that process of prosperity began.

The few commentators I heard noted that this was the first time Donald Trump truly rose to the occasion and came off as presidential.  I sensed that in his introductions of the various people in the House gallery and sharing their stories.

I was intrigued by the Democratic response to the address, given by former Kentucky Governor Steve Bashear, who was in a Lexington, KY, diner, surrounded by people with whom he had just watched the address.  It's clear from the remarks he made that any proposals to resolve the big issues of our time are double-edged swords, especially given all the negative comments on Twitter about Mr. Bashear's performance as governor.  It's going to take some good hard conversation to arrive at a reasonable solution that will do the most good.

So let the conversation keep flowing so we can get some meaningful action going.