COLUMN: State of the Union Obama's best, but questions remain unanswered
On Tuesday, President Barack Obama gave his third State of the Union address.
The President mentioned accomplishments in the Middle East, including removing combat troops from Iraq, something Democrats are happy about, even if it is later than his original deadline. He mentioned the killing of Osama bin Laden, a military accomplishment most Americans welcomed.
He touted the recovery of the automotive industry, saying, “the American auto industry is back.” In taking credit for this, however, he contradicted a principle later in his speech when he told financial institutions that “the rest of us are not bailing you out ever again.” Either you believe in bailouts or you don’t, otherwise it is just hypocritical.
He went on to encourage Congress to pass laws to limit and remove the foreign tax credits available to corporations, which is something that should have been done a long time ago, not only to help Americans secure jobs, but also to bring additional revenue to the government.
On the subject of jobs, he encouraged Congress to eliminate regulations that harm businesses without providing a useful purpose. This is long overdue, and members of both parties should be willing to do this to promote job creation.
Education played a smaller role in his speech than it has before, but he did mention the importance of keeping tuition low and told universities, “If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down.” Here in Michigan, the state government employed a similar tactic, and it worked in limiting the amount tuition went up.
On the topic of energy, he mentioned some positive steps forward in natural gas, battery and wind turbine technology, but highlighted that we still pay subsidies to oil companies. The President is right — we need to end these. Not only are they a waste of money, but they unnaturally lower the price of gas, meaning that Americans are more willing to remain dependent on it.
The last major domestic policy issue he addressed was eliminating “subsidies” for millionaires, something Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., addressed in a report he recently released. Obama and Coburn are 100-percent right — there is absolutely no reason taxpayers should pay millionaires unemployment and other benefits; that is not what the programs were designed for.
Obama then turned sights toward Congress, he first encouraged them to eliminate the ability to own stocks in industries they impact, then blast the overuse of the filibuster, and finally criticized “clinging to rigid ideologies.” All three criticisms are accurate, and fixing these would do wonders for the nation.
The biggest thing his speech lacked was how he plans to help the economy recover while lowering the deficit, and not including that was a huge mistake, since those will be the key campaign issues this year. That being said, the speech was his best so far, and his chances for re-election are looking higher than at this point last year.
Editor's note: Nathan Inks is the president of the College Republicans.
