President Obama’s Joint Congressional Address

President Obama’s Joint Congressional Address

 

Last night, most of America, and I’d venture to say the world, watched President Obama give his first Address in a joint session of Congress. The purpose of the speech was to outline his economic plan to Congress and try to get bi- partisan buy in as well as communicate with the nation what he has done and plans to do in the coming months. I was proud of this speech for many reasons; the first thing President Obama did was welcome his wife. He continues to be an example not only as a qualified and capable leader, but as a great husband and father. In my memory, I can not recollect another President acknowledging his wife’s presence at a public, televised speech. (perhaps Clinton, but we all know how that really turned out) I believe it should speak volumes to Americans that our President is committed to his wife. It should serve as a lesson and example to other couples out there of what true love and dedication is and how it looks.

 

Second, the President has a clear and understandable plan on how he wants to fix the economy. For the last eight years, we were governed by a man whose only care in the world was having a title that made him feel important. We watched as G.W. took a thriving nation and turned it into one that is trying to recover from an economic meltdown that rivals that of the Great Depression. Obama spoke of creating 3.5 million jobs over the next two years; mostly in the private sector. He promised tax cuts for the “real” American middle and working class; those families making a combine income less then $250k a year. He began to renew confidence in our banking and lending systems; stressing the importance of credit and lending to the American people.  Some states will begin to receive money from the stimulus plan today. In Maryland, some of the money is already earmarked for road construction and revitalization. It’s expected that this will create thousands of jobs locally; helping decrease the astronomical unemployment rate.

 

The third thing that impressed me was Obama’s candidness to call out mismanagement of our country for the last 8 years. It’s not a secret that G.W. screwed up; to people who are Republicans or Democrats. It’s evident in our day to day lives that things only got progressively worse in the last several years. Obama made it clear that he is the clean up man;  “…it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we’ll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament.”  He continued on to say “Here in Washington, we’ve all seen how quickly good intentions can turn into broken promises and wasteful spending. And with a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right”.

 

Fourth, Obama called out the importance of education and urged Americans to invest in it and at least complete one year of higher education. In a time where we are competing globally for the same jobs, the need for education should not be forgotten. Having a high school diploma just isn’t enough anymore. Employees not caring enough to continue their learning on new industry standards will not work. We have not heard over the past decade how integral the need for education is from our administration. The fact that it was mentioned, thought about and encouraged at Obama’s level is amazing. If we want to be competitive with other nations, we have to continue learning and excelling in skills that will help us get to the next level.

 

After Obama’s speech, I listened to the Republican response by Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, who I will refer to as bobbyjindal- just one name; it’s much more fun to say it that way. Try it- three times, really fast. You will smile. Anyway, Bobbyjindal, like many Republicans, is still holding onto this old school mentality that the status quo will somehow make our problems go away. As if continuing to do nothing and wishing it away will help. Bobbyjindal disagrees with the Stimulus package. In fact, because he disagrees with it, he’s decided to not accept it for his state. Yes, that’s right- Louisiana; one of the poorest states in the nation; a state still trying to recover from a national disaster over three years ago, will not receive a penny of the stimulus plan because Bobbyjundal doesn’t like parts of it.  It’s absolutely criminal. Haven’t these people been through enough? The state has an unemployment rate of 6% (as of Dec., 2008; last time reported) Let’s remember that this percentage does not include people who do not register as unemployed because they don’t seek benefits and it doesn’t include the number of people who moved to other states because of Hurricane Katrina. I think it’s interesting to note that unemployment rates in Texas, Florida, and Mississippi, where a majority of the evacuees ended up were 6%, 8.1% and 8% respectively for the same month.  Given all this data that proves that the Stimulus would help Louisiana, Bobbyjindal still thinks it’s a bad idea. Oh well, sometimes, you just can’t expect bipartisanship when your dealing with politicians who can’t let it go. G.W. screwed up; it’s done. We have to fix it.

 

I applaud President Obama for jumping into a mess; voluntarily, and working diligently to fix it.  He sounded very positive last night that America can overcome even though the looming reality of the situation is that it will take years and loads of hard work to accomplish this. The bottom line is I have faith in him that he will see this through and that our economy will improve because of his leadership and direction. When we overcome, Obama, who already has superstar status will be promoted to absolute Superhero for tackling what seems like an endless and answerless problem and overcoming.

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