"President Bush is hyping a phony crisis. The crisis in America today is 45 million Americans who don't have health care. The crisis are 11 million children that I just talked about that we ought to be covering with health care. You know, Social Security does not run out as the president says and become bankrupt in 2018. It can pay 100 percent of the benefits until 2042, and after 2042, it can pay 80 percent of the benefits. And all you need to do to move Social Security into safety, well into the 22nd century, into the next century, is to roll back part of George Bush's tax cut today. His tax cut takes three times the deficit of what is contained in Social Security. Now, there are any number of other things that you could do to try to fix it smart. What President Bush wants to do is put at risk something that has stood up not as an investment program but an insurance program, an insurance against poverty. Without Social Security, 50 percent of seniors would be in poverty. Without Social Security, people with disabilities, widows, orphans, children would not get help. And the president is willing to put that at risk so that you have $940 billion in fees that go to Wall Street and a whole bunch of young people get to invest money in who knows what, and there's no guarantee that money will be there for them in their lifetime." - - - John Kerry

When you watch Bush's SOTU speech tonight, C.A.P. suggests (and so do I) that you remember at least these items:

Bush promised that massive tax cuts for the wealthy would create jobs, increase wages and pay for themselves – it never happened. The president pushed through trillions of dollars in tax cuts that failed to create good paying jobs, shifted more of the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class and created huge budget deficits that threaten future growth. Americans should resist his efforts to now make these tax cuts permanent.

Bush promised the war in Iraq would protect us from WMD and help defeat terrorism with little cost to our armed forces or our taxpayers – the exact opposite occurred. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq. The country is now a terrorist breeding ground. With more than 1,400 soldiers killed, thousands wounded, and billions of dollars in taxpayer money spent so far, Americans should be asking the president for a specific plan on what comes next.

Bush promised he would bring the country and the world together but we are now more divided than ever. Bush sells all of his wrong policy decisions as ways to bring together Americans and the global community. But policies born out of ideology and sold through misleading means will never bring people together. Americans and our global allies expect straight and honest policy deliberation and options, not manipulation and coercion.