Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) responded to President Obama’s State of the Union speech last night with a vague outline of “hopeful” plans the Republicans have to “form a more perfect union”.
She said the plan “helps working families rise above the limits of poverty and protects our most vulnerable”. Obama has a plan for that too.
She said she “came to Congress to help empower people, not politicians; To grow the working middle class, not the government; And to ensure that everyone in this country can find a job”. Obama is trying hard to do that too.
She says that our mission as Americans is “to ensure that we are not bound by where we come from, but empowered by what we can become”. I’ve heard the same sentiment expressed by Obama in many speeches before and since he became president.
She said “We’re working on a step-by-step solution to immigration reform by first securing our borders and making sure America will always attract the best, brightest, and hardest working from around the world”. I’ve heard Obama say nearly the exact same thing.
She said that the real gap we face today is not one of income equality that the president spoke about but of “opportunity equality”, and that the gap keeps getting bigger. She did not define “opportunity inequality”. What did she mean? Was she talking about how kids born to the super wealthy one percent have way more opportunities than kids born into poverty? Maybe and, if so, that is a problem that Obama recognizes and addressed in his speech.
She said the Republican’s plan to close that gap is to “focus on jobs without more spending, government bailouts, and red tape…” and that they have “plans to improve our education and training systems so you have the choice to determine where your kids go to school…so college is affordable…and skills training is modernized.”
Obama has been focused on jobs, and yes he does want to spend government money to jump start the economy because there’s a whole lot of infrastructure that needs rebuilding, and now is a great time to do it. Money is cheap and the projects would create jobs. He also wants to improve our education system. Sometimes that takes more money too.
On healthcare reform, she said “we shouldn’t go back to the way things were, but this law is not working”. Obama certainly doesn’t want to go back to the way things were, and, contrary to her declaration, the law is working. It’s not perfect, but over ten million citizens that didn’t have coverage before now have coverage under Obamacare.
McMorris Rodgers tossed in some key words like “compassionate” and “exceptional” because if you refer to Americans with lesser terms, you can’t be a Republican, and you probably aren’t a real American, or human for that matter.
At this point I was expecting to hear some policy proposals for how Republicans will help people get out of poverty; create new jobs; empower people regardless of race or class; reform immigration laws; and improve our healthcare system by finding ways to cover everyone and lower costs; but she did not introduce even one policy proposal.
Instead of offering policy details, she became more patriotic and much more ambiguous:
But all of us will wake up and do what is uniquely American…
We will look forward to the boundless potential that lies ahead. We will give thanks to the brave men and women who have answered America’s call to freedom, like Sgt. Jacob Hess from Spokane, who recently gave his life to protect all of ours.
How is looking forward to “the boundless potential that lies ahead” uniquely American? Does she really think that the billions of people who don’t live in the USA don’t think about what lies ahead of them? And how will she and her party capitalize on the “boundless potential that lies ahead” to improve the lives of all Americans?
She didn’t say. All she could do was:
…simply offer a prayer…
A prayer for Sgt. Hess’s family, your family, and for our larger American family.
That, with the guidance of God, we may prove worthy of His blessings of life … liberty … and the pursuit of happiness.
For when we embrace these gifts, we are each doing our part to form a more perfect union.
So if I interpret this right, she’s praying to God for guidance on how to make our country better. Okay then, so what did God tell her? We’d like to know if they’re good ideas.