State of the Union 2014: A Republican Response

On Tuesday night, President Obama spoke to Congress in his 2014 State of the Union Address. As a Republican, I disagree with a good deal of what he said, but before I discuss the numerous parts of the speech I oppose, there were several positives I’d like to highlight.The president was optimistic. He opened with bright imagery of a nation in sunrise and recovery, a much-needed boost to national morale. Throughout the address, the president emphasized hard work. He hoped for Americans to pursue their dreams; he encouraged citizens to seize opportunity with diligence, honesty and resolve. Furthermore, he refrained from the partisan bickering of which both he and his political opponents are frequently guilty. He did not condemn others in his speech, and this stride toward cordiality in a time of schism was a welcome touch.That said, this address was rather flat, and it contained little new material. The president described a number of goals or initiatives—without much detail or statistical evidence—that he had already introduced in last year’s State of the Union as well as the one prior. He justified the initiatives more than once by offering sentimental anecdotes about an individual or family that either desired his suggested policy or had been positively affected by an existing one. Among the rehashed ideas were a heightened minimum wage, expanded (or even nationalized) preschool services, an argument in favor of the Affordable Care Act, subsidies for green energy, and a few other “we’ve heard this before” campaigns. Throughout the entire speech, which lasted over an hour, he proposed only one new piece of legislation: a tax credit for childless workers.Factually, the merits of all these projects are in dispute. This is not the first time, for example, that Mr. Obama has mentioned a raise to the minimum wage. Last year, he proposed that it be increased to $9, and on Tuesday he proposed that it be increased to $10.10. He believes that it will alleviate poverty, and, by extension, boost consumption. Unfortunately, the unmentioned effect of such a change is the rise in unemployment that will occur when businesses tighten their belts to comply with the new minimum. Economist William Dunkelberg of the Global Interdependence Center estimated that Mr. Obama’s July 2009 minimum wage hike from $6.55 to $7.25 eliminated nearly 600,000 jobs, a great number of them among young, poor, and inexperienced workers. If a raise of less than a dollar eradicated 600,000 jobs, imagine how many will be lost due to a raise of almost three dollars.Apart from the factual problems, the 2014 State of the Union revealed that the president is playing an increasingly small game. In the 2009 State of the Union, President Obama spoke in nearly limitless terms; he was determined to transform both the American economy and the American political system. In April of 2009, Mr. Obama expressed the oft-repeated statement, “It’s time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington.” Despite his pledge toward this end, Washington has become historically polarized during Mr. Obama’s tenure, and the president has been more or less unable to break the gridlock.I do not deny that Republicans share the blame for the dysfunction, but ultimately it is the responsibility of the president to rise above the fray and emerge as a unifying, national figure. While Mr. Obama did not get bogged down in trivial squabbles during Tuesday’s State of the Union, his run-of-the-mill denouncement of Washington infighting was brief, half-hearted and resigned. This sentiment was reinforced by his promise—again, not a new one—to use executive fiat to sidestep the congressional process.In short, the president’s address was optimistic; it emphasized perseverance in times of strife and set an upbeat tone for the upcoming year. Unfortunately, it lacked a clear message as to how the United States will finally recover from the shock it experienced more than half a decade ago, and it failed to provide a cure for the poisonous politics of our day. 