Even though President George W. Bush promised a better America in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, Alabama U.S. Rep. Artur Davis is taking the president’s guarantees with a grain of salt.

“Frankly everything he said was something he has said before and he doesn’t have a distinct new agenda,” Davis said. “But I’ve never seen him follow through on any of his initiatives.”

Davis, D-Ala., said he remembers Bush agreeing to work with prisoners to give them more opportunities for jobs, promising a better immigration plan and guaranteeing more funding for the country’s junior colleges, but has yet to act on any of his words.

“That’s been the pattern,” Davis said. “He’ll throw out a somewhat new initiative, but won’t act on it.”

Davis said his main worry about the State of the Union address was Bush’s plans to stay on the domestic front.

“Staying on the domestic front means continuing to cut programs in my districts,” he said. “Just two days after his speech on providing affordable healthcare, an act passed that would cause premiums and co-pays to go up for 13 million people on Medicaid. I am just disappointed because staying on the domestic front doesn’t work for Alabama.”

But Alabama isn’t the only state Davis feels the president is overlooking. The representative said Bush neglected to mention anything about southern states in his address.

“I’ve never heard him talk about rural America,” Davis said, “It almost makes me wonder if the president even knows these places exist.”

According to Davis, there are six counties in Alabama that are among the 100 poorest places in the country.

“I would love to hear him talk about the problems we have with rural properties, the number of counties without hospitals, the number of children with inadequate education in this area,” Davis said. “He talks about proper healthcare and having ample hospitals in a city, but if we don’t have educated professionals, what can we do?”