Last night, you probably tuned in to see the State of the Union. Last night, you probably didn’t watch the coverage bookending the speech, and maybe you didn’t even catch Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s response (which was incredibly impressive–and why he will be a player on the national stage in the coming years). However, for those who missed it, there was a focus group of Central Ohioans held at The Ohio State University by CNN and conducted by a team from Southern Methodist University. The focus group was carefully selected, with an even demographic split of age groups, racial backgrounds, and political affiliations. I had the privilege of participating, as did recently elected Ohio State College Republicans Chairman Meagan Cyrus, who will lead the group in the coming year. A couple of law school Republicans from Ohio State were there as well, and if you did happen to catch any of the coverage, you would have seen Stephen White interviewed by CNN’s correspondent, Jessica Yellin, following the speeches. While neither of the CRs present got to face the music on CNN last night, there was certainly a lot on my mind after watching the two speeches. Here is what I would have said, given the chance:
-Democrats have only themselves to blame for a lack of bipartisanship. The rhetoric and dishonesty coming from the President’s party in the past 13 months has been nothing short of disgraceful. And when President Obama called for alternative solutions on healthcare, it was overly apparent that our President is content to placate Republicans without actually including their ideas–the GOP has had an alternative, viewable online (unlike Democrat legislation) at http://www.gop.gov/solutions for months. Then the President talks about bipartisanship, and Nancy Pelosi decides this would be a perfect time to roll her eyes. Of course the President then makes an additional comment directed at Republicans about simply saying no to his agenda–which is certainly not the case. At every turn, Republicans have offered solutions, and they have fallen on our President’s deaf “Bipartisan in name only” ears again. The whiny comment about holding up business in the Senate for want to 60 votes is both forgetful of Democrat’s repeated stalling of GOP nominees from 2001-2009, and ignorant of the fact that Democrats enjoyed a supermajority of 60 votes for all of last year, not needing any GOP support if their own house were in order.
-I’m all for tackling the big challenges of our day, but we fundamentally disagree with the President on the order of these priorities. America needs jobs, and nowhere is that more apparent than in Ohio. Our own Governor, Ted Strickland, in his final State of the State speech this past Tuesday, proposed a few band-aid fixes, recycled some Republican ideas, and mostly punted on the truly tough issues. We deserved better from Strickland, and we definitely deserve better from the President. We cannot have a leader publicly calling for a “Jobs” bill that masquerades as a job-creating bill while simply spending money on pet project after pet project. Spending our way out of recession is simply not the right move, and leading Americans into believing that the first stimulus bill did anything other than put up a lot of fancy signs along our highways is just not true. The bill was sold as a job creator, and we lost over 3 million jobs in the nation last year. The math does not add up, Mr. President.
-Young voters are starting to get the picture and are waking up from a massive hangover. We’ve seen vast gains for the GOP in the youth vote in recent VA, NJ, and MA elections, all wins for the Republicans. And while the specifics of student loan reform are another post for another day, two things are extremely obvious. First, forgiving student loan debts will do little to reduce the actual cost of attendance, and it does nothing to create jobs for graduating students. Youth unemployment is drastically higher than the general population, and this is a problem that needs addressed. Secondly, nationalizing the student loan industry to cut out competition in the marketplace that helps create lower interest rates and more loan availability is a dangerous move. If you can show me a nationalized industry that works better under fed control than it did or does under private control, I’m all ears. And didn’t President Obama just get done talking about cutting government?