Unlike many political speeches, Donald Trump’s State of the Union on 31/1/2018 was surprisingly clear about his plans for the future.

In his first State of the Union address, he trumpeted the record achievements since his election as President of the United States of America – enacting the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history, unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low, including African-American and Hispanic-American unemployment at the lowest rate ever recorded, and the stock market has smashed one record after another.

A married couple can now earn $24,000 per year completely tax-free.  This is similar to the Scottish Christian Party manifesto’s “goal of every family reaching a tax-free living income of £24,000 per year.”

While applauding the police, armed forces and veterans, Trump reminded his hearers that “In God we trust”, and that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the centre of American life.  He spoke of having taken “historic actions to protect religious liberty.”

This contrasts with the ethos among current British legislators.

Trump then went to outline the big ideas that he wants to implement – to promote inward investment, to reduce the price of prescription drugs and to speed up experimental trials to find cures for the terminally ill.  Rebuilding industry will be accompanied by rebuilding crumbling infrastructure “to fix the infrastructure deficit”.

His aspiration is to “lift our citizens from welfare to work, from dependence to independence, and from poverty to prosperity”.

Utilising the presence of various attendees to illustrate his points, he led up to his plan to build the famous wall on the Mexican border with the story of the brutal murder  of two teenage girls by gangs whose members come over the border illegally, and the heroic attempts by border enforcement agencies to prevent them.

His speech and his vision was clear.  Would that all politicians spoke as plainly and were as clear about their vision.

‘Where there is no vision, the people perish’

Proverbs 29:18.