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The 2008 State of Union address marks the beginning of the end of an era. Since President Bush took office, we have seen terror rise up, a tyrant fall, a war that seemingly has no end, the United States act as an Empire, felt the scorn of the world, witnessed the rotting away of the American economy and the disappearance of the middle class. And the President thinks it was all a job well done.

I admit that when I turned on the television, to listen to his speech to the 110th Congress, I expected to be disappointed. President Bush is the man that has made me feel ashamed of being a Republican. And while he occasionally has done or said something that I agree with; for the most part, I find his Presidency to be lackluster affair, and more trouble than it is worth. Basically, I promised to be a hostile audience.

As one of the citizens that the President claims to serve, I found the President's speech to be another barb in my side. Quite simply, the President declared that he was going to remain as stubborn as ever, and that we are going to receive another year of the same type of antics that we have came to expect from him.

The President feels that we can be confident in the economy-in the long run. On the other hand, the short run, he admits that it is slowing down. Once again, he trotted out the idea of the stimulus package, asking for it not to be leaden down with extras that might delay or completely derail it.

Personally, I am not sure if the stimulus package is going to do any good. It seems like a matter of spitting in the wind; an attempt to scratch the economy out of the mouth of a rapidly approaching recession. The President is not worried about his legacy. Nor should he be; after all, I (like many others) will remember him forever as the man in office when my job got axed. A few hundred dollars will not change the minds of many people. (As it stands I will receive none of this economic stimulus; living on student loans and the meager income of a struggling freelance writer resulted in no taxes and hence no rebate check for myself.)

When President Bush asked Congress to trust people and leave their money alone, I feel that he is not talking about me or anyone that I know. The tax relief that he wants made permanent applies only to the rich.

As for the one hundred and fifty-one programs that he wants to see cut because they waste money, I could not help but wonder if my federal student loans are not part of that waste. I wonder exactly who is going to get

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