President Trump wasn’t going to ruin his State of the Union address by mentioning America’s inconsequential national debt. From MN Gordon at economic prism.com:
Another week. Another week of distractions. On Tuesday, for instance, was the great State of the Union Address. To this, many opinions and observations have been offered. Here, we’ll contribute several of our own…
President Trump is a showman of stout ego. How he must have relished the run-up to Tuesday’s primetime address with impatient anticipation. What a disappointment it must have been to look out from the podium of the House of Representatives at the 116th Congress and see the greatest assemblage of political crooks, lowlifes, and losers in living memory staring back at him.
But the show must go on…disappointments and all. For life’s full of disappointments. The many botched opportunities. The countless hours wasted on bids for ridiculous jobs. Super Bowl Sunday. Duds, dissatisfactions, and disappointments come a dime a dozen.
Words are also the source of many disappointments. Words that shouldn’t have been said. Words that should have been said.
So, too, words, and the absence of words, can be distractions. And within a sequence of words there are sometimes obvious omissions.
For example, nowhere within the 82 minute State of the Union Address was there a single word of the country’s burgeoning $1 trillion budget deficit. Nowhere was there a word of the great $22 trillion national debt default that’s bearing down upon us like a savage hurricane along the Gulf Coast. Nowhere was there mention of the $122 trillion in unfunded liabilities, which includes the sacred cows of social security and Medicare.
What Gives?