Napolitano’s State of the State was full of the usual meaningless clichés and self-congratulations for adding and expanding more government programs. The speech wasn’t necessary, since the State of the State speech is supposed to be about where the state is headed and Napolitano no longer has any input into that, but Napolitano never saw a camera opportunity she didn’t like. She said she was sad since it would be the last time she would be addressing Arizonans like this, but unfortunately knowing how much she loves the limelight she’ll be back all too soon to run for Senate.

Hopefully she is not taking her speechwriter with her, there were so many meaningless clichés it began to sound painful. Here are some of the worst ones:

“move our state forward” (as if anyone might actually be in favor of moving our state backwards?)
“safer and stronger than ever before” (no, we’d rather be weaker and in jeopardy)
“All of us give ourselves for the greater good” (nah, we’ll just opt out of the U.S.)
“Arizona is young and dynamic, it is primed for success” (as opposed to a state like Ohio that is old and looking at defeat)
“I will do my utmost at the Department of Homeland Security as I have done my utmost here” (there was some concern that I would not do my utmost, so I’d better clarify)
“generations will remember how we educated our children” (is there any reason to think they wouldn’t remember?)
“Our state is called to show its commitment to children” (as opposed to being uncommitted to children by what, eliminating them?)
“We need to show the world Arizona is open for business.” (no, let’s show the world we’re closed for business)
And her closing cliché – “An Arizona that will continue to build its longterm future” (naw, let’s just dissolve the state)

Napolitano began her speech saying with a straight face (you expected to hear the audience laugh) that she has presented balanced budgets every year she was in office. Even the liberal Arizona Republic reporters have reported over and over again how this was a façade, Napolitano merely used gimmicks to hide the fact she was borrowing from future revenues and disguising debt. You don’t suddenly end up with a $2.6 BILLION deficit – the second worst state budget in the nation according to the Goldwater Institute – if you’re presenting balanced budgets every year. $2.6 billion doesn’t just pop up one year out of nowhere.

She claimed that she set money aside in the rainy day fund, but the Goldwater Institute also refuted this, in an article noting that Napolitano failed to save any money during the years the state was bringing in healthy revenues.

She then blamed the deficit on the recession! And launched right into the remainder of her speech, which was nothing but listing all the government programs she was responsible for expanding or creating while in office. Uhhh, this massive expansion of government under her was not responsible for the biggest deficits in Arizona’s history.

The centerpiece of her speech was education, which was the biggest issue she ran on for governor. The Goldwater Institute has done a thorough job of reporting how education is worse than it was when Napolitano entered office, so it was a bit nervy of Napolitano to make her record on education the centerpiece of her last State of the State speech. One of the biggest expansions of government in education Napolitano rammed through was all-day kindergarten in the public schools. The Goldwater Institute found that all-day kindergarten has a negligible affect on children by grade 5. In other words, it’s nothing more than taxpayer-funded daycare. Considering this is one of the biggest expenses that has been added to the state’s budget under Napolitano, contributing to our 2nd worst deficit in the nation, it is an embarrassing “accomplishment.”

Napolitano claimed that she cut Arizona’s high school dropout rate almost in half. But according to the Goldwater Institute in a 2005 report, Arizona has had the worst dropout rate in the nation since 1991, with 11% of students dropping out every year. Doubtful that a miracle suddenly happened between 2006 and 2008. If it did, she would have said what it was.

Napolitano repeated one of her tired old mantras, which is that more money must be spent in public school classrooms. Throwing more money at public schools doesn’t work. Arizona spends $8,500 per student, which is about the same as the U.S. average for all states. The schools that spend the most per pupil, $15,000, in Washington, D.C., are dead last in the nation for grades.

Next Napolitano bragged about how she tripled the amount of financial aid available to college students, and said that she has asked the universities to double the number of bachelor degrees they award by 2020. But was this really necessary? The workforce doesn’t need additional college graduates. In a fairly recent study from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it was found that only 29% of jobs require a college degree. 40% of Americans currently obtain college degrees. If college degrees are optional for many, they shouldn’t be funded on the backs of other taxpayers.

Napolitano bragged about increasing construction projects at Arizona’s public universities, saying they’re creating more jobs. She neglected to say that they are also creating more debt for taxpayers. Arizona State University is the biggest public university in America. Why are we continuing to pay for government universities to increase in size when there are plenty of private colleges that offer quality education without breaking the backs of taxpayers?

The next spending project Napolitano congratulated herself on was increasing funding for research facilities at the public universities. Again, why is it necessary to fund research that is already being done well in the private sector at private universities?

Next, Napolitano gloated how she would be bringing home pork from the federal government soon, in the form of money for an “infrastructure stimulus plan,” whatever that is. Probably more money to expand light rail.

She said she is recommending that the legislature increase funding for “desperately needed school buildings.” That’s funny, the legislature is always complaining how half the budget is untouchable by them since a huge chunk of it was designated in a voter proposition to go to school facilities; Arizona’s schools have some of the best facilities funding in the nation. It goes without saying that some of the cash-poor charter schools that meet in trailers and mobile homes have the highest test scores in Arizona.

There was the inevitable discussion of her TIME initiative, which would have wiped out Arizona’s budget completely had it made it to the ballot and passed. A whole list of special interest groups was set to benefit from it. Rep. Andy Biggs described it the best: “It raises sales tax rates nearly 18% for 30 years to pay for a litany of wasteful projects. Her plan includes $1.7 billion in giveaways to environmental groups and billions more to light rail and inter-city trains.”

The Western Climate initiative was brought up, and Napolitano repeated the Democrat global warming scare talking points about how we need to limit greenhouse gases. Not only is the Western Climate initiative costing the state a lot of money to participate in, but it’s not within the state’s jurisdiction to address. It is wastefully duplicating the federal government’s efforts.

She bragged about how she had increased the number of people who were taking advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit (remember her emails urging people to take advantage of it?). The Earned Income Tax Credit is not a credit, and it has nothing to do with earned income. It is a straight giveaway of other taxpayers’ money to people earning around $20k or less. If you’re a middle class student living on student aid and working a part-time job, you too qualify and get some of other peoples’ money for nothing.

Foreclosure spending was the next topic. Napolitano beamed discussing how not only did the federal government throw money at Arizona’s homeowners, but the state did as well. What she didn’t say is that although it is sad to see people have to sell their homes and move back into apartments, it would teach them financial responsibility. Otherwise they are likely to repeat the error of their ways, buying homes they can’t afford and continuing to buy non-necessary cell phones, big-screen TVs, brand-new cars, etc. We have the highest standard of living in the world. People living in Third World countries would give their right arm to live in a fully furnished apartment with electricity, running water, with money to spare to buy luxuries like cell phones and new cars. The greedy attitude that everyone must have a house is not realistic, since people will always buy beyond their means, buying non-necessary things they can’t afford on top of the house.

Napolitano said it would be wrong to hurt the poor in the name of balancing the budget. That is not reality. In reality, you hurt the poor when you enable them to spend beyond their means, and they never learn financial responsibility so they are constantly thrown into one financial hardship after another. And most of those who lost their homes due to foreclosure were not “poor,” but middle class, who had bought homes that were too expensive for them.

Then Napolitano took credit for cutting $1.8 billion in spending within the past 2 years (did not hear anyone laughing?). In reality, this was accomplished thanks to our Republican legislature that made necessary cuts to bloated, unnecessary, and unaffordable government.

She listed some more government programs that she wants to see taxpayers spend more money on; kidscare and prescription drugs. As we all learned in the last election, McCain lost to Obama because the voters were so disgusted with how bloated Bush had grown the government, particularly with the prescription drug discounts. Apparently Napolitano doesn’t listen. As for kidscare, it would expand government insurance coverage of children to families making up to 300% of the federal poverty level. Middle class – not just poor – families making $60k/yr would get free public healthcare for their children. Everyone else left in the nation making more money than that can’t afford to cover those costs.

The part of her speech bragging about Arizona’s efforts fighting illegal immigration was particularly funny. She took credit for the efforts that leaders like Sen. Russell Pearce, Sheriff Arpaio, and County Attorney Andrew Thomas have made in this area. It was insulting considering those principled men take a beating regularly in the mainstream media for standing up and representing common Arizonans, unlike Napolitano. Napolitano has vetoed every single illegal immigration bill that has ever crossed her desk except one, and that was only because she got trapped into it. She said she is offering a bill that would expand human trafficking laws to include human smugglers. This didn’t make any sense, because the state already has a law against human smuggling, and Arpaio and Thomas have arrested and prosecuted hundreds of illegal immigrants and smugglers under it. Clearly she was offering another meaningless gesture to make her look good only.

Ironically, furious that the legislature had gone around her vetoes and sent illegal immigration bills to the ballot, Napolitano then recommended that the law be changed to prohibit the legislature from doing this. She said the number of legislators required to send an initiative to the ballot should be increased to equal the number of legislators required to override one of her vetoes.

She ended her speech touting her most recent new government program, az211.gov. It is supposed to be a place where people can volunteer to help the state. There are a few choice government projects that she has listed on the site that she wants to steer people to volunteer for. Ahhh, we get it. She is trying to get people to work FOR FREE for the government, so government can get even bigger for free!