If Obama actually thinks there are wasteful discretionary programs, like ethanol subsidies and farm subsidies, he should just directly call for those programs to be eliminated. If ending a bunch of bad corporate welfare programs results in an overall cut in discretionary spending, that is good.

Please take a look at my analysis of the full speech, which was released about an hour ago. Also, if you want to look at a scorecard from last year’s State of the Union, look at this HuffPo checklist from 2010.

Let the liveblog begin.

Do people still want to predict massive economic growth this year?

President Obama is holding a town hall right now in Nashua, New Hampshire that was both a teachable moment and also incredibly revealing about the bankruptcy of the President’s spending freeze. Unfortunately, he delivered the argument against the freeze.