Jon Stewart makes fun of the shallow GOP responses to State of the Union Address
Jon Stewart decided to have some fun with four of the GOP responses to President Obama’s State of the Union Address (SOTU). The President noted that the vast majority of the gains from the economic recovery went to the top 1%.
During President Obama’s SOTU address he presented several policies to mitigate some of these imbalances. He called it ‘middle-class economics’.
The President wants to offer free tuition to junior college. He wants to expand the child care tax credit for 5.1 million families. He wants to rebuild America’s infrastructure, expand on NIH cutting-edge research, continue to connect veterans to jobs, and much more that materially helps middle-class families.
The GOP responses provided shallow platitudes instead of engaging with the President on alternative middle-class policies. They did not provide concrete policies or suggestions that would provide the middle-class access to success. Their responses ignored the reality of a dramatically improving economy, a working Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), progress towards energy independence, a booming green energy sector, and an over-performing stock market.
Jon Stewart justifiably made fun of the SOTU rebuttals by Senator Joni Ernst, Senator Rand Paul, Congressman Curt Clawson, and Senator Ted Cruz. Their rebuttals lacked the seriousness of our time.
The GOP resorted to their talking points and disingenuous word games. Joni Ernst referred to the Keystone XL pipeline as a jobs bill and infrastructure project.
The Republican politicians continued to disparage the Affordable Care Act even as it has helped and is helping millions of their citizens. In fact Kentucky, Rand Paul’s home state is one of the largest per capita beneficiaries of the affordable care act because of a very large poor and sick population.
If the intent of the GOP is to continue the intransigence and status quo demonstrated by these four rebuttals, then the President will have to govern virtually alone.
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