Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Why is the State of the Union always ‘strong’?
Why is the State of the Union always ‘strong’?
Dec 12, 2025 4:23 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
Negotiating with a Domestic Extremist
A new book wants to be a slam-dunk take-down of feminism and hook-up culture. But whatever its good intentions, an overly rosy picture of its “trad” opposite does young women—and men—no favors. Read More… Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War by Peachy Keenan—a pseudonym used by a seriously Catholic humorist deep in the bowels of blue California—is a heated polemic about how feminism has failed women and how they can take back their lives and femininity...
When the Church Becomes the State
A new book challenges the revived threat of “integralism,” which would seek to use the coercive power of the state to enforce religious canon law. This is bad not only for civil and human rights but also for religious faith. Read More… Until a few years ago, I was not even familiar with the term “integralism,” which refers to the Catholic political doctrine that calls for the subordination of the state to the church. As a believer from the Islamic...
Student Loans and the Sin of Usury
President Biden’s attempts to erase large portions of student loan debt miss the larger moral picture. Read More… A new school year has just begun, and students and their parents are faced once again with the high cost of higher education. The Supreme Court ruled President Biden’s executive order on student loan forgiveness unconstitutional. Undeterred, the president has since expanded e-based repayment. Predictably, Democrats defended it and Republicans attacked it. Meanwhile, many continue to struggle with student debt. Tuition has...
What Does the Bible Really Teach?
Catholics and Protestants have long been at odds over how to interpret Scripture. What role do tradition, the Church Fathers, and ecumenical creeds play? Or is the Bible alone sufficient ing to “the knowledge of the truth”? The editor of First Things has a few suggestions. Read More… Protestants classically believe in sola scriptura, but they also know that some Protestants have conjured exotic beliefs based on appeals to the Bible alone. At a Baptist church where I was once...
Is the Tide Turning on Religious Belief?
Despite the dour statistics about declining church attendance, religious faith seems to be experiencing a revival. What role did the New Atheists ironically play in it? And what is its future? Read More… In the latter half of the 19th century, the poet Matthew Arnold, on his honeymoon, was walking with his bride along the rocky shoreline of the English Channel as the tide was going out. The sound made him think of “the Sea of Faith,” which was once...
Baseball at the Abyss
The recent controversy over the anti-Catholic group hosted by the L.A. Dodgers recalls scandals of baseball’s past. Yet the all-American game always manages to bounce back. You can thank great performances on the field—just don’t forget the fans. Read More… On June 16, some 2,000 people gathered outside Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium to protest the team’s having chosen to honor, on the field before that night’s game, a group whose core mission and purpose is the open mockery and parody...
Elisabeth Elliot and the Mystery of Divine Providence
Bestselling author Ellen Vaughn (The Jesus Revolution) has just brought out the second volume of an authorized biography of Elisabeth Elliot, who was, and remains, an inspiration to evangelical Christians around the world. Read More… With over 24 books to her credit, renowned biographer and New York Times bestselling author Ellen Vaughn is out with her second volume on the life and work of Elisabeth Elliot, the noted Christian author, speaker, and philosopher who died in 2015 after a 10-year...
Three Years After Chinese Communist Crackdown, Hong Kong Continues to Suffer
Despite a push to draw young talent back to the city, Hong Kong is suffering grievously as the Chinese Communist Party crushes civil rights, pursuing dissidents even beyond its borders. Read More… At the end of August, the Hong Kong government charged a Cantonese language group with “threatening national security.” The latter had posted online an essay, cast in the form of fiction, that emphasized the city’s loss of liberty. Andrew (Lok-hang) Chan, who headed Societas Linguistica HongKongensis,explained thatthe group,...
Hope and Opportunity for Formerly Incarcerated Women
The Lovelady Center in Alabama is proving a model for care when es to women released from prison. Faith-based and holistic, it is showing results and providing hope in ways government-run agencies simply cannot. Read More… Each year, over 80,000 women are released from state prisons. Within five years, around half of these women are predicted to return. Most of them experienced childhoods sabotaged by violence, sexual abuse, trauma, and broken families. Many are battling addiction and mental health disorders....
“Rich Men North of Richmond” Is Whatever You Want It to Be
Oliver Anthony’s controversial #1 Billboard hit stands in a long line of protest songs. But doth he protest too much? Read More… A song addressing such salient political issues as currency debasement, the displacement of miners in our green economy, and the Fudge Rounds Question achieved a feat Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” and Miley Cyrus’s “Flowers” could not. Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the second consecutive week. It looks unlikely to...
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