Although it can be difficult to predict what the President will key in on in his upcoming State of the Union address (I for one did not see the "Let's gut Social Security" idea coming last year), I think it is safe to say he will concentrate heavily on the economy and Iraq. With that in mind, I think the below points must be presented in the Democratic response for it to have any effect on thinking of the American people.
The Economy.
The President will no doubt tout current economic statistics that show a steadily growing economy.
The Rebuttal: Key economic indicators be damned. Wake up America and look in your wallet. We can talk about GDP and productivity all we want but the fact of the matter is over the last 5 years your income, adjusted for inflation, has remained stagnant or declined. And this President along with his rubber stamp, the GOP controlled congress; do not consider that to be a problem. In fact, they continually enact legislation to exasperate the problems. Why is your real income falling? Look at what you're paying for energy, education, and health care; the costs are skyrocketing. And how has this administration and the GOP led congress addressed this? By granting huge give-a-ways to the health care, oil, and pharmaceutical companies while simultaneously cutting health care coverage and educational assistance to working Americans struggling to get by. How has the American family responded to this economic downturn? Your working more hours, single income families have become two income families, you spend less time with your children and less time enjoying the fruits of your labor. You are also running up debt in effort to maintain your standard of living. Look at your credit card and loan statements. How much money do you have to spend on interest? Money I'm sure you could have found much more rewarding ways to have used. The fact of the matter is, middle America, your quality of life is in decline. It is in decline and not only is the President and his congressional GOP allies not trying to stop the decline, they are trying to accelerate it.
Foreign Policy and Security.
The President will highlight Iraqi elections.
The Rebuttal: I think that we can all agree that a stable and democratic Iraq is good for the security of the United States; the President however, still fails to answer to the key questions necessary to achieve that end. The President has repeatedly said, "as the Iraqi security forces stand up, we will stand down." But he refuses to address why this process is moving so slowly. In 2005 we actually saw the number of fully trained Iraqi battalions fall from three to one. If this truly is the measure of victory the administration appears to be losing ground. Why is the President not making the training of Iraqi security forces his top priority? Additionally why does he refuse to set reasonable deadlines for the Pentagon to have the forces trained? A goal without a deadline is not a plan, it is a pipedream and the President appears to be happy in his dream world. Well, Mr President the American public is not happy. They expect our executive to set clear goals for progress and then supply our fighting men and women with best resources so they can successfully complete those goals and return home and that is not what they are getting. What the administration has delivered is vague "stay the course" rhetoric while simultaneously doing little to no soul searching as to where the failures are occurring and how to overcome them. What has been the result of this? Our men and women of our armed forces continuing to be killed and maimed every day, while simultaneously driving up a huge federal debt to finance the lack of planning.
Successes in the War on Terrorism.
I think the message here should be simple and concise. Mr. President we reject your false dilemma that you can either have the personal security guaranteed in the Constitution or can have security from terrorism. The fact of the matter Mr. President is you can do both, and if you don't think you can, you are either not working hard enough or you lack a key competency necessary to be the Chief Executive of the worlds leading democracy.