THE STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH 2014 Ken Herron January 28,2014 I so dislike to listen to our President speak that I started to skip the TV presentation of the SOTUS but my granddaughter who is helping me with my campaign for Congress called a few minutes before it started and instructed me to watch it and then write a message of my impression of the speech. It occurred to me that I expect to be a member of Congress this time next year and will be seated in the chamber for next year’s version of this speech. The President made good use of the Teleprompters on each side in front of him and moved his eyes back and forth in a very natural manner. He appeared to be speaking from memory and it was obvious that the speech was well rehearsed. His presentation was very pleasing to his party and they rose with applause quite a number of times. He began by telling us how much better off the country has become in the past five years under his leadership. Teachers are teaching better since he became President. Entrepreneurs have started new businesses and created more than eight million new jobs under his leadership. While he was restructuring the automobile industry, he insisted on increasing the fuel efficiency on all of the automobiles made in this country. Farmers have seen a big rise in the exports of their products. The past five years are the strongest in the history of our country. He stated that under his leadership researchers had developed an economical treatment for asthma. He is ending the longest war in the history of our country by the end of this year. Under his guidance, our country for the first time in history has produced more energy than we import. Investors around the world now are switching their investing from China to the United States because of our strong economy. The President stated that he had cut our deficit spending in half. Due to his leadership our country now has the lowest unemployment that we have had in five years. We have a rebounding housing market and our nation is better positioned for the next year than any other nation on earth. The question is whether the folks in this chamber are going to help or hinder the outstanding progress that we are making. Things that have happened in the last 30 years have weakened the economic foundations that our families depend upon and many good middle-class jobs have been lost. He stated that corporate profits and stock prices have never been better and the people at the top of the corporations have never made so much money. The problem is that the workers have not seen their fair share of the increases and too many are working at a compensation level that just allows them to get by. (Republicans were responsible for much of the past 30 years. His restructuring of the automobile industry did not include Ford and Ford is making the most efficient automobiles. Our increase in oil production was achieved not because of him but in spite of his efforts. Deficit spending has substantially increased and it has not been cut in half. ) He stated that he was offering tonight a set of concrete practical proposals to strengthen the opportunities for the middle-class that the Congress must take action upon and if they did not he would use his pen and write Executive Orders to achieve those things under his control. (He made broad references to some of the problems but there were very few concrete practical proposals in the speech.) The President gave credit to his wife Michelle and Jill Biden for their very successful partnership with schools, businesses, and local leaders called “Let’s Move” helped to reduce childhood obesity rates for the first time in thirty years. These ladies have also used their alliances to encourage employers to hire or train 400,000 veterans and military spouses. (This is the first I have heard of these brilliant programs.) The President stated that we must move toward a cleaner energy system because Climate Change (Global Warming) is a proven fact and we must leave our planet better than we found it. He has caused the automobiles to use less fuel which improves the air pollution and now he wants to move the trucking into using natural gas instead of diesel to further clean the atmosphere. He ridiculed the Congress for not extending unemployment benefits to 1.6 million people who lost their benefits at the end of December. (They are extended to 99 weeks at this time which is almost two years. The President wants it to go further.) The President said that women were being paid $.77 on the dollar for doing the same job that men were doing. He wants Congress to correct this. The subject of the minimum wage rate came up and the President wants it raised to $10.10 per hour. He said that he was going issue an Executive Order to require everyone who is given a government contract to pay their employees above the minimum wage of $10.10. (Just about anything purchased by our government by contract is purchased from a Union company and the minimum wage is usually above $20 per hour.) The President proposed a new retirement program similar to an IRA. He calls it MyRA. It will be a treasury note with a little higher interest and it will have the same tax benefits that an IRA possesses. It will be more secure than a normal IRA and will have a guaranteed return. (This sounds like a plan to get citizen’s retirement accounts into the hands of the government so that the money is available for the General Fund.) He spent a few minutes talking about the Affordable Health Care Act. He discussed two points briefly. One was that children living at home could stay on their parent’s insurance plan until they are 26 years old. The other point was that pre-existing conditions are covered. (If these were the only two things that needed to be corrected in our health care system, the bill could have been written on one page and not require the 2300 pages which the bill contains.) The President assured the Congress that he had the Iran Nuclear situation under control and that he would veto any new bill to impose sanctions on Iran. (The President did not give any specifics about programs that he wanted the Congress to submit to him. He discussed subjects in a very general manner. It was more of a political speech than anything else.)
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 14:56:26 +0000
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