Tuesday, January 20, 2015

President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address for Dummies


The President gave his State of the Union address tonight and there are 4 major areas or proposals that President Obama talked about. Lets take a quick glance and a simplified version of what the president is proposing and his plans for the last two years of his presidency.

2 Year of FREE Community College

President Obama proposed tonight what he is calling “America’s College Promise.” Under this plan the first two years of community college with be completely free to all Americans just as long as you keep a 2.5 GPA. Even though all citizens would benefit from this plan, the so-called non-traditional student will benefit the most ftom this bill. The only problems so far, besides opposition from the do nothing Congress, is that no one really knows where the money will come from to fund the plan. I would suggest that we take the money from our trillion-dollar defense bill but that’s just my opinion. 80 percent of the country would probably disagree with me.

Declaring War On ISIS

To many of you this sounds a little crazy. If you’re like me, you probably thinking that we are already at war with ISIS. Let me remind you that only Congress can authorize war, so yes we are not at war with ISIS, and yes, we are still out there spending millions of dollars a day bombing them back into the stone age. This makes you think, how are we in the Middle East bombing another country, two actually, without following the law and declaring war on those countries? Just like everything else in politics, there are loopholes that allow our government/president to bomb other countries without a declaration of war by using “word magic” terms such as “authorization of force” or “offering military expertise.” I can write 20 blogs just on this subject but lets move on.

Diplomatic Ties With Cuba

As you’ve probably heard by now, President Obama used his executive order power to open up new relations with Cuba. This is a move that was not popular with the Republicans but the president said tonight that the 50-year policy/embargo we have with Cuba has not and will not work. He told the Congress to work on a bill that will end the embargo on Cuba, until than, he will keep on using his executive power to do as much as he can to open up relations with Cuba. Me being an Latin American, this is what I applauded the most, even though I was home alone in my bedroom, I’m sure that the president heard my cheers! lol


Child Care

President Obama spent a great deal of time at the beginning of his address on childcare. He stated that childcare is an economic issue for all Americans. He talked about the fact that families are spending more on childcare than they are on their mortgages, and in half the states of America, childcare cost more than college. President Obama said that his new budget plan would include tax cuts for working families to help with childcare.

Conclusion

The president’s speech can be summed up by the six words that Obama keep on repeating throughout his whole speech. Every time he proposed a new plan he would say that we should do it because “it’s the right thing to do.” I also believe that passing these new proposals is the right thing to do, but just by watching the state of the union address you can clearly see the divide that our country has been stuck in since Obama took his seat as the president of the United States. This is why I think that passing any of these new bills will probably be impossible. Watching tonight’s address was like watching a comedic movie. Every time Obama proposed a new plan only half of the room would stand and applauded, which looked hilarious to me. It’s no surprise that there is a divide between the Republicans and the Democrats in Washington and all across the country, but the one thing that did surprised me was the one thing that everybody stood up and applauded for, and that’s WAR! It seems like both sides and the president are always ready to go to war.


My favorite parts of the speech were, one, the whole 10 seconds Obama spent on talking about, in my opinion, the most important issue of our generation, police brutality against black and brown people around the country. It seems like this issue, once again, is not a priority for either the president, congress, or the senate. This, along with the big standing ovation for war, is what troubles me. Two, there was a moment where Obama said, “I have ran my last campaign” and the Republicans in the crowd actually started clapping for that statement, but Obama, sharp on his toes, hit back with, “I know, because I won both of mine.” The place broke out in laughter, one point for the president. It’s hard to outwit this man, haven’t they learned that already... lol

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