This week was a great week for finishing the data collection and dissemination for the State of the Union Speech that is coming up this week. We received information regarding new home sales and existing home sales. We received information on a historically low level of unemployment benefits. We also received solid Gross Domestic Product (GDP) information.

(Jan. 22) The week started with a shutdown, the Schumer Shutdown for Illegal Immigrants. The first article of the week details how this problem was created by a memo during the run-up to the Presidential Election of 2012, what is being done regarding Visa Overstays and Kate's Law, and what the costs of inaction are.

(Jan. 24) We received some remarkable data regarding existing home sales. WE saw a record average sales price for the month of December. We also saw a level of inventory lower than anything on record back to January 1999. It was "Remarkable December Existing Home Sales Data." There was a lot to discuss.

(Jan. 24) Thursday was a busy morning with the release of the weekly unemployment claims data and the Monthly New Home Sales data. We saw the lowest EVER non-seasonally adjusted first-time claims number for the third week of January. The program started during 1967. The lowest  during the past 51 years. First-time claims tend to drop from here through the end of Summer. The continuing claims data is on the decline as well.

(Jan. 25)  The new home sales data was also remarkable. The new homes sales were misunderstood. We have a new home inventory problem just as we have an existing home inventory problem. Inventory is rising for new home sales. We set a December record for the average sales price as it approached $400,000. We had our best year since 2007. It is also remarkable that the media mostly ignored the data as being "unimpressive." December was up 10% over December 2016. The entire year was up 8% over the 2016 level of sales. That deserves some remarks.

(Jan. 26) What is up with the Gross Domestic Product? The Real GDP, the value that tells us where we have been during the past 12 months was up for the sixth consecutive quarter. The Annualized GDP, the headline GDP, came in at 2.6%. This is pretty good when you consider that there were two quarters of growth over 3% preceding it. The times where we have had a fourth quarter over 3% it was because the GDP was bouncing up from a value of 1.3% (2009,) or 0.8% (2011,) or 0.1% (2006) during the third quarter. It was significant because we saw Personal Consumption Expenditures rise (although not as much as it could have been reported,) Gross Private Domestic Investments rose, Exports rose, and Government Expenditures rose.

This was an outstanding month for economic data. There is a considerable amount of good news for the State of the Union. President Trump has added more private sectors workers during his first eleven months in office than Presidents Reagan, Clinton, George W. Bush, or Obama. We had our best retail Sales Year EVER. We also saw that New Construction Starts, units under construction, and completions are up from 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016. New construction generates other economic activity through the creation of jobs and retail sales. It is a virtuous cycle. The stock market is soaring.

The President Should quote President Clinton's 1995 State of the Union Address.

"All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected, but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens."

The President should quote Senator Obama: "When Congress last addressed this issue comprehensively in 1986, there were approximately 4 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. That number had grown substantially when Congress again addressed the issue in 1996. Today, it is estimated that there are more than 11 million undocumented aliens living in our country.

The American people are a welcoming and generous people. But those who enter our country illegally, and those who employ them, disrespect the rule of law. And because we live in an age where terrorists are challenging our borders, we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, and unchecked. Americans are right to demand better border security and better enforcement of the immigration laws."

The President should quote President Teddy Roosevelt. "In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

The President could also reference Senator Schumer, Senator Clinton, and Senator Feinstein from a time when they were against illegal immigration before they were for it. The same could be said regarding Congresswoman Pelosi.  Use these peoples' words against them.

It's the Economy.