A Lungren Reflection
Washington, D.C. — Third District Congressman Dan Lungren had a number of reflections on President Obama’s first State of the Union address Wednesday evening.
The initial reaction to the 69 minute speech, “Once again the President gave a good speech … he is a good speech maker but as someone said on the way back what we need is not a good speech but we need good jobs. While he finally recognized our problem with spending too much I don’t think he gave us any earth shattering suggestions on how he wants to move out of it … that’s number one. Number two, he talks about another stimulus package for jobs and while he did give a nod toward some tax cuts for small business he also talked about taking some of the tax cuts away so that was certainly a mixed message.”
On health care reform which by all accounts appears to be dead in the water, “He certainly had his jaw set and was telling us he intends to fight for the same plan. It was almost as if he was repeating that same interview he did with George Stephanopoulos (ABC) in which he said, “Look I have haven’t done a good enough job of explaining my ideas on health care.” The fact is he has explained well those ideas. The American public has rejected them. I’ve never seen people at Town Hall meetings come with a better knowledge of a particular subject matter as they have with the health care bill in particular knowing it line by line, section by section and knowing what it meant. If the President truly believes that it has just been a failure of him and he just needs to talk some more to the American people I think he’s sadly mistaken and unfortunately that’s not only going to be bad for his party but more importantly it’s going to be bad for the country.”
Tomorrow Republicans will have the opportunity to meet face to face with President in Baltimore, “It ought to be an interesting time and we will see what it’s like to sit down with the President and discuss these things. Two weeks after he became President he came and spoke with us and said he wanted to work with us but since that time we have been shut out from any of our ideas. It’s not that the Republicans are being shut out, it’s the people that we represent that have been shut out and as we have seen in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia and across the country in Town Hall meetings I think we (Republicans) represent where the people are right now.”
Written by bill.johnson@mlode.com
