President Barack Obama's Speech to Congress

I put this blog off until now so that I could write about Barack Obama's speech to congress. Our President showed us one of the most important reasons he was elected; his brilliant ability to connect to his audience. He followed up his delivery with context that tackled the largest issue currently facing our nation; the weak economy.

He began by defending the financial stability plan saying that he would hold "the banks accountable for the assistance they receive". He also reassured that this is something that he would not like to do but if nothing was done the problem would have become worse and continued over a longer period of time. To address the problem the President called for massive reforms on our regulatory systems of the banking industry, reforms that "rewards drive and innovation and punish shortcuts and abuse”. But he conceded that the recovery plan financial stability plan were only short term solutions to our problems.

The president’s speech also looked at securing our nations long-term future, focusing on four main idea's; improving education, eliminating our current debt, reducing health care cost and producing our own renewable energy.

Our president asked that "every American commit to at least one year or more of higher education". The basic idea is that we need to better our education and its structure because other country's that out-teach our country today, will out-perform us tomorrow. This struck me as a breath of fresh air. It feels good to see our President focusing on issues that WILL help our country's future. He acknowledged the high price of tuition and announced that if you were willing to volunteer in your community or for your country that education will be available for you.

The President also said that he planned on reducing our nation’s debt by ending no bid contracts in Iraq, reforming tax codes to remove "breaks that reward corporations that ship our jobs overseas" all while giving tax breaks to 95% of 'working America'. He said that he has already found ways to reduce spending by 2 trillion dollars over the next decade by going through the nation’s budget “line by line”. He also announced that he is going to announce a plan to "leave Iraq to its people and responsibly end the war " and that under his administration he will not hide the cost of the war.

Health care was clearly an important issue in his speech. He made it clear that our current system is bogging down our business and hurting our economy. He announced he wanted to reform health care, to make moving jobs and industry out of our country less appealing.

He announced that within his stimulus plan there was a focus on developing renewable energy, which would end our dependence on foreign oil and create American jobs. This is an issue which I feel is very important. I believe that if Americans could find an alternative renewable energy source, it would not only cut our energy costs but we could even create a technology in which we could make money off of. (Exporting the energy and teaching others how to use/create it) We could save along with make money off of finding new energy source.

I believe the president’s speech was straight to the point and reassuring. He expressed his ideas clearly and effectively. One strong message he made is that our current problems are not democratic or republican issues but American issues. I believe that this is where his speech can connect to our own class but maybe not in the traditional way of differences. I believe that it his speech showed the parties similarities. Even though the two parties may disagree on specific issues, both parties are still looking to create a better America. Members of both parties may have slightly different methods but both are trying to protect and shape the country they love. I believe he did a great of uniting the parties while trying to create a larger vision of a stronger and more dynamic America.

Check out the speech if you missed it! - YouTube link