President Obama delivered his best State Of The Union address yet by shifting left and championing equal pay for women, healthcare reform, and raising the minimum wage.
The president demanded that women get equal pay for equal work,”Today, women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment. A woman deserves equal pay for equal work. She deserves to have a baby without sacrificing her job. A mother deserves a day off to care for a sick child or sick parent without running into hardship – and you know what, a father does, too. It’s time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a “Mad Men” episode. This year, let’s all come together – Congress, the White House, and businesses from Wall Street to Main Street – to give every woman the opportunity she deserves. Because I firmly believe when women succeed, America succeeds.”
Obama called on Congress to raise the minimum wage, Of course, to reach millions more, “Congress needs to get on board. Today, the federal minimum wage is worth about twenty percent less than it was when Ronald Reagan first stood here. Tom Harkin and George Miller have a bill to fix that by lifting the minimum wage to $10.10. This will help families. It will give businesses customers with more money to spend. It doesn’t involve any new bureaucratic program. So join the rest of the country. Say yes. Give America a raise.”
President Obama also vocally defended the ACA,
A pre-existing condition used to mean that someone like Amanda Shelley, a physician assistant and single mom from Arizona, couldn’t get health insurance. But on January 1st, she got covered. On January 3rd, she felt a sharp pain. On January 6th, she had emergency surgery. Just one week earlier, Amanda said, that surgery would’ve meant bankruptcy.
That’s what health insurance reform is all about – the peace of mind that if misfortune strikes, you don’t have to lose everything.
Already, because of the Affordable Care Act, more than three million Americans under age 26 have gained coverage under their parents’ plans.
More than nine million Americans have signed up for private health insurance or Medicaid coverage.
And here’s another number: zero. Because of this law, no American can ever again be dropped or denied coverage for a preexisting condition like asthma, back pain, or cancer. No woman can ever be charged more just because she’s a woman. And we did all this while adding years to Medicare’s finances, keeping Medicare premiums flat, and lowering prescription costs for millions of seniors.
Now, I don’t expect to convince my Republican friends on the merits of this law. But I know that the American people aren’t interested in refighting old battles. So again, if you have specific plans to cut costs, cover more people, and increase choice – tell America what you’d do differently. Let’s see if the numbers add up. But let’s not have another forty-something votes to repeal a law that’s already helping millions of Americans like Amanda. The first forty were plenty. We got it. We all owe it to the American people to say what we’re for, not just what we’re against.
The president also called for an end to voter suppression, “Citizenship means standing up for everyone’s right to vote. Last year, part of the Voting Rights Act was weakened. But conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats are working together to strengthen it; and the bipartisan commission I appointed last year has offered reforms so that no one has to wait more than a half hour to vote. Let’s support these efforts. It should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank account, that drives our democracy.”
Contrary to what Republicans think, there was nothing socialistic about the president’s address. The speech was one of the more liberal SOTUs that any president has delivered in decades. Gone was the pipedream of reaching across the aisle bipartisanship. The flowery let’s work together language has been replaced by a president willing to act alone to give the American people what they want.
This address was a grand slam. It touched on most of the major social and economic areas that the majority of the country can agree on. The president’s remarks mentioned marriage equality, immigration reform, equal pay for women, economic inequality, education, climate change, alternative energy, closing Gitmo, and jobs. His remarks were a virtual Democratic checklist of important issues.
The proof that America is moving left can be found in this State Of The Union. Talk of tax cuts, deficit reduction, and spending cuts was nowhere to be found. America is becoming a liberal nation, and the stale ideas of the GOP are holding the nation back. Barack Obama was speaking the words that his changing nation wants to hear. America is changing and growing, and Obama’s leadership is delivering real change that you can believe in.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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