Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Why is the State of the Union always ‘strong’?
Why is the State of the Union always ‘strong’?
Dec 21, 2025 4:30 PM

I have a can’t miss prediction: tonight, when President Trump gives his first State of the Union address, he will describe the state of the union as “strong.” (I’ve made this prediction on this blog the past several years, so I’m hoping for a quadfecta of prescience tonight.)

Admittedly, predicting that the state of our union will be described as “strong” is about as safe a bet as you can make when es to politics. Over the last hundred years presidents have described the State of the Union (SOTU) in various ways — Good (Truman), Sound (Carter), Not Good (Ford). But it was Ronald Reagan who started the “strong” trend in 1983 by referring to the SOTU as “Strong, but the economy is troubled.” Since 1983, “strong” has been used to refer to the SOTU in 29 addresses.

Here is howthe state of the Union has been described over the past hundred years:

2016: Strong (Obama)

2015: Strong (Obama)

2014: Strong (Obama)

2013: Stronger (Obama)

2012: Strong (Obama)

2011: Strong (Obama)

2010: Strong (Obama)

2009: Stronger than before (Obama)

2008: Strong (Bush)

2007: Strong (Bush)

2006: Strong (Bush)

2005: Confident and Strong (Bush)

2004: Confident and Strong (Bush)

2003: Strong (Bush)

2002: Never been stronger (Bush)

2001: Strong (Bush)

2000: Strongest it has ever been (Clinton)

1999: Strong (Clinton)

1998: Strong (Clinton)

1997: Strong (Clinton)

1996: Strong (Clinton)

1995: Stronger than it was two years ago (Clinton)

1994: Growing stronger but it must be stronger still (Clinton)

1991-92: [Status of the SOTU not specified] (Bush I)

1990: Sound and strong (Bush I)

1988: Strong, prosperous, at peace, and free (Reagan)

1987: [No status of the SOTU specified] (Reagan)

1986: Stronger than a year ago and growing stronger each day (Reagan)

1985: Stronger, freer, and more secure than before (Reagan)

1984: Much improved (Reagan)

1983: Strong, but the economy is troubled (Reagan)

1982: [No status of the SOTU specified] (Reagan)

1981: Sound (Carter)

1980: Depends on the state of the world(Carter)

1979: Sound (Carter)

1978: Sound (Carter)

1977: Good (Ford)

1976: Better–in many ways a lot better–but still not good enough (Ford)

1975: Not Good (Ford)

1974: At peace with every nation of the world (Nixon)

1973: Sound, and full of promise (Nixon)

1969-1972: [No status of the SOTU specified] (Johnson, Nixon)

1968: Challenged (Johnson)

1966-67: [No status of the SOTU specified] (Johnson)

1965: Depends, in large measure, upon the state of the world (Johnson)

1950-1964: [No status of the SOTU specified] (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson)

1949: Good (Truman)

1948: Reflects the changing nature of the modern world (Truman)

1928-47: [No status of the SOTU specified] (Coolidge, Hoover, FDR, Truman)

1927: In general is good (Coolidge)

1926: One of general peace and prosperity (Coolidge)

1925: One of progress and prosperity (Coolidge)

1913-24: [No status of the SOTU specified] (Wilson, Harding, Coolidge)

Note: Speeches given in 1989, 1993, 2001, 2009, and 2017 were not technically “State of the Union” addresses, which start a year after presidents have been in office.

Previous Article：What the ‘Czech Trump’ means for Church property and immigration Next Article：What is moral hazard?
Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Hardships of Ethanol
Everywhere we look we are facing rising prices. We find them at the gas pumps and now we see them at our supermarkets. Food prices are climbing, and just like gas prices, they are having broadly felt adverse effects on Americans. The Wall Street Journal sat down with C. Larry Pope, the CEO of Smithfield Foods Inc., the world’s largest pork processor and hog producer by volume, to discuss the rising food prices and how they are affecting his business....
Men Seeking Absolute Power
David Lohmeyer turned up this excellent clip from the original Star Trek series: Kirk opens the clip by referencing the Nazi “leader principle” (das Führerprinzip). Soon after Hitler’s election as chancellor in 1933, the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave a (partial) radio address and later lectured publicly on the topic of the “leader principle” and its meaning for the younger generation. These texts are important for a number of reasons, not least of which is that pares the office of...
Goodbye, steeple. Goodbye, people.
We might need an update to the children’s rhyme: “Here is the church, / here is the steeple, / open the doors, / and see all the people.” Before I got wrapped up in ongoing conversations here, there, and seemingly everywhere about the nation’s budget, I noted that the ripple effects from the economic downturn were beginning to hit churches in a serious way. Christianity Today passes along a piece that speaks to a much more particular phenomenon: the decline...
The Belgic Confession and Political Justice
Much of the discussions I’ve been involved in over recent months that have focused on the federal budget have involved some basic assumptions about what the Christian view of government is. Sometimes these assumptions have been explicitly conflicting. Other times the assumptions have been shown as the result of mitments about what Scripture says. This is, for instance, one of the points that came up right at the conclusion of the panel discussion about intergenerational justice at AEI a few...
The Welfare State and the Moral High Ground
Writing in the Sacramento Bee, Margaret A. Bengs cites Rev. Robert A. Sirico’s Heritage Foundation essay “The Moral Basis for Economic Liberty” in her column on munities and government budget battles. As a priest, Sirico has met many entrepreneurs “who are disenfranchised and alienated from their churches,” with often little understanding by church leaders of the “vocation called entrepreneurship, of what it requires in the way of personal sacrifice, and of what it contributes to society.” This lack of understanding,...
Rising Food Prices and Regulation
In an article appearing on EWTN News, Acton Director of Research, Samuel Gregg, is interviewed on rising food prices and the effect on the developing world. In this article, Dr. Gregg contributed to a broad discussion on the many factors contributing to the rising food prices. He advocates for a free market economy in agriculture by discussing the effects agricultural subsides in Europe and the United State, and how these market distortions contribute to stifling the growth of agriculture in...
Christian Unity and the Russian Orthodox Church
The miraculous post-Soviet revival of the Russian Orthodox Church, all but destroyed by the end of the Stalinist purges in the 1930s, is one of the great stories of 21st Century Christianity. This revival is now focused on the restoration of church life that saw its great institutions and spiritual treasures — churches, monasteries, seminaries, libraries — more or less obliterated by an aggressively atheist regime. Many of the Church’s best and brightest monks, clergy and theologians were martyred, imprisoned...
Film Spanks U.N. Treaty on the Rights of the Child
There’s a free screening of a documentary critiquing the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child this Friday evening at 7 p.m. at Grandville Church of Christ–3725 44th St. SW. The film makes the case that parental rights have already been dangerously eroded in the United States and would be further eroded if Congress ratified the U.N. treaty. The screening is sponsored by the area chapter of Generation Joshua and is open to the public. More against the treaty...
Review — Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea
A mere mention of North Korea brings to mind the repressive regime of Dear Leader Kim Jong-il. Although Kim has been satirized in the West as an impish consumer of cognac and NBA paraphernalia, his grip on society is both chilling and inescapable. The country frequently receives news coverage for its nuclear aspirations, unjust penal system, and horrendous human rights record. However, a recent academic study by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland uncovers yet another facet of the North Korean...
Samuel Gregg: Benedict XVI in ‘No One’s Shadow’
In a special report, the American Spectator has published Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg’s new article on the “civilizational agenda” of Pope Benedict XVI. Special thanks also to RealClearReligion for linking the Gregg article. Benedict XVI: In No One’s Shadow By Samuel Gregg It was inevitable. In the lead-up to John Paul II’s beatification, a number of publications decided it was time to opine about the direction of Benedict XVI’s pontificate. The Economist, for example, portrayed a pontificate adrift, “accident-prone,”...
Related Classification
RELIGION & LIBERTY
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
About
Terms and Conditions Privacy policy Cookie Settings Contact Us
Services
Login register
mreligion RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE RELIGION & LIBERTY
Links
zpostcode Recruit weather mreligion Yellowpages sport constellation shopping name game directory literature Word tour furnish Lottery tftnews lyrics News digital car dir Edu Finance
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved