First our union ...
Maybe Donald Trump is onto something.
No, not with his "State of the Union" carnage, but with his State-of-his-really-bad-Twitter-feed carnage.
Really, why should he have sweated any preparation for a speech when he can divide and delude on a daily basis in 280 characters at a whack?
Of course, DJT never misses an opportunity to command a stage with a sneer and swagger, so why would Tuesday night have been any different?
As New York Times columnist David Leonhardt noted in advance Tuesday morning: Trump's critics criticized him, his supporters praised him and some pundits got stuck on the word "reset." And most of the talk about the talk was and is meaningless.
It is worth noting, however, that probably all others among our dozens of presidents have understood that the State of the Union address is one of their biggest opportunities. It is their moment to command and influence the attention of the entire political world.
Singularly, Trump has a hard time keeping up with his own versions of rehashed campaign braggadocio, let alone any sweeping new policies or initiatives.
And then our state ...
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam had his own "State of the State" speech Monday - his last - in which he touted what he sees as his successes.
The eight-year Republican governor said Tennesseans "raised our expectations" to increase student test scores, create 400,000 new jobs, cut taxes by $572 million and offer free community college.
There's more coming of that, Haslam indicated, if his current budget proposal is passed and holds true: K-12 and higher education teachers will get raises, and the state will offer more job-growth incentives to companies looking to barter a few jobs for a lot of tax cuts.
There's even a paltry $30 million program to help our state with its dire opioid epidemic.
Gee, did we mention that the expected cost announced last year to rebuild Fall Creek Falls State Park lodge is a bargain at $25 million?
What Gov. Haslam didn't talk about were the 280,000 working but poor Tennesseans who went without adequate insurance and health care when he failed to sell the majority Republican General Assembly on expanding Medicaid and taking in $2.6 billion - billion with a "b" - in federal tax dollars to pay for it.
Haslam also failed to note the costs just this coming year in taxpayer services that his precious tax cuts are ushering in:
» The Department of Labor and Workforce Development is set to take the single largest cut - $5.8 million - to manpower for any department with a loss of 89 full-time positions and 54 part-time positions. That will include 38 unemployment insurance employees, 36 workforce services employees (these are folks who help those who suddenly find themselves without work) and 15 administration employees.
» The Department of Human Services will take the second largest cut - $5.1 million. Here, 66 full-time positions are recommended for elimination, including 53 cut from rehabilitation services alone, and two from disability determination, two from quality improvement and nine from administration.
» The Department of Transportation will lose 66 positions under Haslam's proposed budget.
» The state's children's services divisions will lose 32 positions. The Department of Intellectual Disabilities and the Department of Children's Services would see 20 and 12 positions cut, respectively.
In the meantime, if Haslam's final budget is approved, state government will still have grown at a 2 percent rate per year, on average, during his two terms in office. Haslam, a moderate Republican, claims that's a good average, noting that it compares to 7 percent for the four previous administrations.
"It has helped us be able to cut taxes, lower our debt and raise the amount of money in our savings account," Haslam said.
It also has helped wealthy Tennesseans not pay state taxes on investments, reduced corporate taxes on manufacturers and trimmed one penny - a whole penny - from our 5 percent sales tax. So if a poor working family spent $100 on groceries, they only paid $4 in state sales tax, not $5.
Meanwhile Tennessee ranks among the top five states in number of opioid prescriptions written by doctors. In fact, our doctors issue about 1 million more prescriptions each year for dangerously addictive opioids than we even have Tennesseans - men, women and children - living in our state.
Does much of this sound like success to you?