The State of our Union is... (Preview #2)

The State of Our Union is…

With tonight’s State of the Union address, President Obama has the entire country watching him and anticipating where the President would like to take the country. He will also provide a synopsis of how he views the current state of the country. A lot of the pre-address pontificating by the so called experts has focused on what the potential balance between the President’s attempt to “invest” in certain government initiatives and the Republican attempt to cut spending. The Democrats don’t seem to remember what happened just a few months ago when Republicans won overwhelmingly across the country – taking over the House of Representatives, multiple Governor seats, and state legislative bodies. A lot of the Republican commentary has focused on how many times the word “investment” will be used. This term is the Democrats way of stating how much the government will spend. They seem to not be too worried about the dramatic increase in the federal deficit over the past five years and think that an over $10 trillion deficit is not too much of a problem. The Democratically led Congress has spent way beyond its means since they took over in January 2007.

The Republican response by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin provides the Republicans an opportunity to articulate their plan for cutting the size of government. While his speech will likely pale in comparison to the President’s, it is likely to be more of an indication of the direction the country will actually go over the next few years since the Republicans control the House and therefore the spending process in DC. There is also a lot of interest in the “Tea Party” response given by Representative Michelle Bachman of Minnesota. Since many of the networks are likely to cover her remarks, she will likely have the opportunity to speak for a growing political force in the US. Tonight’s speeches will likely provide an ample opportunity for today’s political talking heads to get their face on tv, quoted in tomorrow’s newspapers and provide enough opinions to provide all the media outlets ample column inches to not have to worry about filling the pages of tomorrow’s newspapers.