During the president’s State of the Union address last night, Barack Obama stated that we need to reaffirm our commitment to civil liberties and the protection of American privacy. For once, we agree. The erosion of Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections are among the greatest causes for concern among the political issues of today.

It’s no big surprise that I wasn’t a fan of President Obama’s State of the Union address last night. As expected, it was full of bad ideas and logical fallacies. I could go through his entire speech and point out where he’s wrong but many like-minded commentators already have. Instead, I want to focus on what I realistically wish Obama would have said.

Democracy and Power 103: Government Money The money taxed and spent by the politicians comes from the labor and ingenuity of millions of working persons. Politicians spend other peoples’ money. The politician transfers money from productive people to favored special interest groups.

Democracy and Power 108: ObfuscationWherever politics intrudes upon economic life, political success is readily attained by saying what people like to hear rather than what is demonstrably true. Instead of safeguarding truth and honesty, the state then tends to become a major source of insincerity and mendacity. —Hans F. Sennholz

In Tuesday's State of the Union Address, President Obama proposed raising the federally mandated minimum wage to $9 per hour, a 24% increase over the current mandate. In a subsequent conversation, my friend David Guenther of the Texas Public Policy Foundation made a good point about the effects of this if it were to come to pass:

The state of the union is “screwed.”