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Post from The Revolution will NOT be Choreographed:
State of the Union realities
By vitality - Feb 2nd, 2006 at 12:02 pm EST
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The following stats were chosen to give a clear indication of claim vs. fact as it relates to President Bush's "State of the Union" address.


"addicted to oil"

--percentage increase in the price of a gallon of gasoline since 2000. 51%

--percentage increase in the price of a gallon of home heating oil since 2000: 94%



Health Care:

percentage of companies that provided health care to their employees in 2000: 69%

percentage of companies that provided health care to their employees in 2005: 60%

Number of additional Americans w/o health insurance 2000: 6 million



College Costs:

Average cost of yearly tuition at a 4-year public university in 2000: $3,962 dollars

Average cost of yearly tuition at a 4-year public university 2005: $10,982 dollars


Amount of subsidies provided to the oil industry in 2005 energy bill: $6 BILLION


There are many more of course.

Reader Comments

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Question:
By Superduperficial Feb 2nd 2006 at 12:44 pm EST
"addicted to oil"

--percentage increase in the price of a gallon of gasoline since 2000. 51%

--percentage increase in the price of a gallon of home heating oil since 2000: 94%



The President's means of controlling this is...?
Re: Question:
By levinson.eric Feb 2nd 2006 at 1:59 pm EST
The President tells his base what it wants to hear but does not actually do anything he talks about, or does the opposite. He has mentioned responsible energy policy in all of he SOTUs, yet here we are in 2006 and he acts like this is some new issue to tackle.

All talk, no walk.
Re: Question:
By Superduperficial Feb 2nd 2006 at 3:27 pm EST
The President tells his base what it wants to hear but does not actually do anything he talks about, or does the opposite. He has mentioned responsible energy policy in all of he SOTUs, yet here we are in 2006 and he acts like this is some new issue to tackle.

All talk, no walk.



All of which is irrelevant to the question I asked. What are the president's means of controlling oil prices?
Re: Question:
By levinson.eric Feb 2nd 2006 at 5:22 pm EST
Well, for one, he could actually implement the energy-responsible policies he talks about to reduce demand for oil. Obviously the energy bill passed after Katrina did nothing to stem rising prices, despite throwing some $2 billion of our tax dollars at the oil industry.
  
Stats
By levinson.eric Feb 2nd 2006 at 2:45 pm EST
The first number represents statistics for 2004 (January 2005 SOTU), the second is the number for 2005 (January 2006 SOTU).


U.S. military deaths: 1,415; 2,242

U.S. military wounded: 10,622; 16,606

Number of daily insurgent attacks: 61; 75

Number of multiple fatal bombings per month: 28; 30

Number of Iraqi security forces: 125,000; 273,000

Estimated number of insurgents: 18,000; 15,000-20,000

Estimated Iraqi military and police deaths: 1,300; 4,059

Crude oil production (millions of barrels per day): 2.1; 1.78

Monthly oil revenue from exports: $1.49 billion; $0.84 billion

Daily average hours of electricity in Baghdad: 9; 3.2

Estimated unemployment rate: 27-40%; 25-40%

Percentage of Iraqis who believe country is headed in right direction (through Dec. 2005): 49%; 49%
  
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