State Of The Union: Reaction From The Left, Right & Elsewhere

Tuesday night’s State of the Union speech gave us an opportunity to practice a little bipartisanship of our own.

Talk Business asked two of our content partners, Jason Tolbert of the conservative Tolbert Report and Matt Campbell with the liberal Blue Hog Report, to find positives from the opposite parties’ messages.

We also solicited comments from a couple of Arkansas’ Congressmen, Democrat Mike Ross and Republican Steve Womack – both of whom sat next to each other at the Presidential address.

Womack, who represents the Third District, called from the floor of Congress and said that his first in-person State of the Union speech was "an experience I wish all of my constituents could have had."

Calling it a "good" speech, but not a "great" one, Womack said he liked what he heard about reducing corporate tax rates, but was not impressed with murky allusions to a potential amnesty program for illegal immigrants.

More importantly to Womack, he said the President’s message on reducing federal spending didn’t go far enough.  President Obama called for a five-year freeze on discretionary federal spending.

"It’s not about freezing federal spending," Womack said. "It’s about cutting federal spending."

He predicted a "difficult" and "potentially ugly process" in forthcoming budget talks. When asked if political point scoring could be put aside to work together, Womack responded, "We’re going to have to learn to work together to get anything accomplished."

Ross, who represents the Fourth District, issued an early press statement saying he was pleased with the President’s emphasis on the economy, jobs and the deficit.
 
“We must heed the President’s call for a more cooperative, understanding and respectful dialogue.  I have always believed that no one political party or ideology has a monopoly on good ideas and I will continue to work in a bipartisan way to find common sense solutions to our nation’s most serious challenges," Ross said.

Back to our challenge for our left-wing and right-wing bloggers. From the right, Tolbert declared that the 3 things he liked from Obama’s speech included:

1) Extension of tax credits for college tuition.
2) Support for repeal of the overreaching 1099 reporting requirement in the federal health care legislation.
3) Promise to veto any bill that contains earmarks.

From the left, Campbell said that the challenge was "WAY harder than I anticipated."

His three positives from Paul Ryan’s GOP response to the State of the Union:

1) Paul Ryan is exceedingly fit.  He also has a perfectly straight part to his hair and is wearing a very nice tie.  These three things seem to overcome his ridiculously bloodshot eyes and lopsided (and bizarre) ears, which is a great and wonderful thing for him.
2) Ryan had the courage to challenge voters to hold both parties accountable when it comes to cutting spending.  Based on what the Republicans have done so far, that is amazingly bold, so I salute him for that.
3) Despite being amazingly and mind-blowingly wrong on so many points, Ryan still came across as infinitely more reasonable and sane than Michele Bachmann.  Wow, is that one crazy woman.  BUT SHE DOES HAVE SLIDESHOWS, AND YOU WILL RESPECT THOSE!

As moderator of this blog/web site, I’m going to have give Tolbert the nod on rising to the challenge. Campbell, you owe Tolbert lunch at Alley Oops.  I’ll come along to make sure everything is order — and you can buy me lunch, too, for putting you guys to the test.

— Roby