Dennis Kucinich: “a State of the Union Address is an opportunity for the Nation to take stock of where it is at this exact moment. It is…”

“a State of the Union Address is an opportunity for the Nation to take stock of where it is at this exact moment. It is obvious that the entire domestic agenda has been swallowed up by the war in Iraq. With over 3,000 U.S. soldiers killed in action; with over 650,000 innocent Iraqi civilians dead in the war; with this Nation's having spent over $400 billion in the war and, according to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stieglitz, will spend up to $2 trillion for the war in Iraq, we have seen the hopes and the aspirations of the American people for more jobs, for better housing, for decent health care, for education for their children just swept aside as the administration focuses intently not only on the war, but escalating the war. I think all across this country people are hopeful that America will have a new agenda, one which will recognize that we must focus on America's basic needs. It is time for America to come home. Come home and start taking care of the needs of our people here for decent housing, the needs of our people for health care. Over 100 million Americans either have no health insurance or lack access to adequate health insurance, and yet we are about destroying the health of the people of Iraq instead of focusing on the needs of our people here back home. Martin Luther King said it years ago in his speech at Riverside Church in New York. He said that the hopes and the aspirations of people of two countries were being set aside.”