Aderholt Responds to President Obama's State of the Union Speech

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Robert Aderholt (AL-04) this evening released the following statement in response to President Obama's State of the Union speech.

"This evening I again attended the State of the Union address as I always have since first being elected to Congress. Being a part of this Constitutional requirement is and has always been an honor and from that standpoint it never gets old.

"Unfortunately, I cannot say the same thing for most of the President's ideas and proposals. For the most part, they are the same old tax and spend approaches to our nation's problems that the President and so many in the Democrat party have rolled out for too many years.

"Back in early November of last year, voters across our nation sent a very clear message to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: 'Dear Mr. President, the liberal ideas, policies and executive overreach are not the path the American people want to go down. We want a new direction.'

"Yet this evening, the President responded to that voter mandate by announcing his continuation of what I think are irresponsible and unworkable policies.

"Any new proposals or new programs, such as the President's free community college tuition idea, need to start with the question of how are we going to pay for this? Our nation is currently 18 trillion dollars in debt, almost half of which was accumulated just during the past six years.

"Our budget deficits have shrunk in the past few years and tonight the President took credit for this reduction. It doesn't take much of a historian to look back and see that it was the President and Democrats who were forced, kicking and screaming, to cut spending.

"Our new Congress, with a new Republican majority in the Senate and increased numbers in the House, have new ideas for the American people. The people's priorities will be our priorities as we focus on economic growth. Instead of a top-down mindset, we will begin with a bottom up approach that focuses on good paying jobs and real pay raises Americans have gone too long without.

"I am ready and I know that my Republican colleagues, and some Democrats as well, are ready to start a fresh approach for America that focuses on the future. I'm hopeful that the President will come to see this is what Americans want and won't stand in the way. The people want new ideas, not the failed policies voters vetoed in November."

In Washington, Congressman Aderholt serves as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies for the powerful House Appropriations Committee; he is also a member of the Committee's Defense Subcommittee, the Committee's Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee, and the Helsinki Commission.

For more information about Aderholt's work in Congress visit: www.aderholt.house.gov.

###