Heartland Institute Experts React to President Obama’s State of the Union Address
| Targeted News Service |
The following statements reacting to President
"The president displayed a remarkable lack of gravitas in his State of the Union address. For a while, he was crouched over the lectern leaning on his elbows, like a college professor leading a discussion rather than the Leader of the
"There was so much else wrong with this speech. Taking credit for things he's done so much to prevent (like rising oil production), the repetitive call-outs to sad sacks in the gallery in order to cite anecdotes instead of making credible arguments, the incredibly insulting and condescending notion that
"His line about Obamacare - 'come on guys, voting to repeal it 40 times is enough' - trivialized an effort by a co-equal branch of government to keep promises its members made to voters back home, to repeal and replace legislation that was passed under false pretenses. He mocked his critics when he should have been apologizing for telling lies to the American people in order to get that legislation passed. The right thing to have said is: 'I apologize for misleading members of
President
312/377-4000
"The president continues to place his faith in government programs as a means to promote growth and prosperity. Economic history shows government efforts to direct and control the economy tend to detract from growth and impoverish people. America's historical success is due to an alternative - faith in the freedom of individuals and markets.
"By replacing individual freedom with government control and direction, the president's policies have produced the weakest recovery in over a century. Had our forefathers placed their faith in government instead of individuals, the U.S. today would be a third world nation. By moving to replace our precious individual freedoms with progressively more government control over the economy and markets, the president opts for policies that will continue to erode the living standards of most Americans."
Policy Advisor, Budget and Tax Policy
312/377-4000
"The president says that the economy is improving substantially. Sadly, the average worker does not believe that. As President
"There is good reason for the pessimism. (http://www.npr.org/2014/01/17/263502993/workers-may-be-missing-or-maybe-just-retiring) In 2007, 66 percent of Americans over age 16 either had a job or were looking for one. Today, that is down to 62.8 percent, the lowest labor-force participation rate since 1978."
The Doy & Dee Henley Chair and Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence
312/377-4000
"In his meandering mess of a speech,
"
Senior Fellow, Health Care Policy
312/377-4000
"
"The president is quite bold to claim his micromanaging, dictatorial education policies are already improving student achievement when the statistics show his penchant for making laws without
Research Fellow,
Managing Editor,
312/377-4000
"Claiming credit for Common Core by name is problematic for
Senior Fellow, Education
312/377-4000
"I sat down at my television set with a yellow legal pad and a mechanical pencil to take notes and jot down comments I'd like to make. My legal pad is blank. I fell asleep and might still be asleep if my daughter hadn't nudged me awake. I'm not sure how long I was asleep, so maybe I missed something important but I doubt it. I didn't hear anything inspiring, uplifting or amusing, aside from his quip about how mothers might appreciate a phone call from their kids to help them sign up for Obamacare.
"It seems to me if there was a theme that ran through his talk, it's that executive orders will drop from his pen like leaves from trees on a breezy day in late fall.
Research Fellow, Budget and Tax Policy
Managing Editor
312/377-4000
"As a society, it is high time for us to recognize and embrace the truth. Contrary to
Senior Fellow, Environment
Co-editor,
312/377-4000
"The president said 'climate change is a fact' and vowed action via the
"It has become purely a rock-solid, lock-step political position of the
"Science and politics do not match well. Science is not settled by a vote, and slogans and platform planks are not scientifically significant. It is my deepest regret this has become a political issue. I think we will make little progress in obtaining an open hearing from the public as long as the political leaders line up their followers on one side or the other."
Meteorologist,
Policy Advisor, Environment
312/377-4000
"
"When our children look us in the eye, we want to tell them that our generation rejected the belief that regulating emissions alters our climate and weather. We want to tell our kids that we rejected the belief that acts of
Publisher
Climate Depot
312/377-4000
"
"The president correctly stated that climate change is a fact. It has been ongoing for hundreds of millions of years and there is little governments can do to stop it. The great fear of global warming was artificially contrived. For a president to declare that he will expand executive powers, without Congressional approval, to fight this non-threat is a drastic step towards authoritarian government. Already, the administration has contrived an artificial concept called the social cost of carbon. All life on the planet is carbon based. Is life a pollutant? Does life have a social cost? The concept is an insult to logic, language, and science.
"
Executive Vice President
312-377-4000
"Last night's State of the Union Address reminds me of the idiom 'on one hand, on the other hand.' On one hand,
"He took credit for his 'all of the above' energy strategy, which he claims has 'moved America closer to energy independence than we have been in decades.' And, regarding natural gas, Obama said he'll 'cut red tape to help states get those factories built and put folks to work.' He also proclaimed: 'I'll act on my own to slash bureaucracy and streamline the permitting process for key projects, so we can get more construction workers on the job as fast as possible.' Yet, the
"On one hand, the president says he wants to help. On the other hand, everything he does hinders."
Executive Director
312/377-4000
"In his State of the Union Address,
"Reckless overspending in
"If Obama is truly concerned about leaving our children's children with a safer, more stable world, he should start by cutting government spending and reducing the tax burden on American workers so that the economy will finally begin to grow and the private sector will create jobs."
Policy Advisor, Budgets and Taxes
312/377-4000
"
"These unilateral acts are those of a man who would be king, which he is not. As I recall we fired the king more than 200 years ago. Jefferson, Madison, and the legions who staked and gave their lives on creating this republic to operate as a democracy are surely turning in their graves."
President/Managing Partner
Policy Advisor, Legal Affairs
312/377-4000
"Apart from throwing a few crumbs to his base,
"I had hoped for some learning from the president - to the effect that the private sector is where solutions lie to nearly all our real problems. Government's only role must be, as Jefferson said, to 'secure [our] rights' - not to train Americans for anything other than, perhaps, defending the country from potential aggressors. It is not the job of government to 'give us a chance,' since our form of government doesn't include some monarch handing out favors to subjects."
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
R. C. Hoiles Endowed Chair in Business Ethics and Free Enterprise
312/377-4000
"From the SOTU, you'd never guess that we have a record low in number of people employed, record levels of debt, abysmal international standing in education, chaos in the
"Now that ObamaCare has fixed health care, and reduced
"From the enthusiastic applause, it would appear that
"How can anyone take this charade seriously?"
Jane M. Orient, M.D. (http://heartland.org/jane-m-orient-md)
Executive Director
312/377-4000
"What Obama delivered was a list of the same policies that have ill-served the nation. After five years, we know that what he cannot do is provide leadership sufficient to govern America. Foreign or domestic, his policies have been marked by failure.
"On the long roster of issues he addressed, he placed an emphasis on putting Americans to work again, but that remains a difficult goal to achieve when his administration is scaling new heights in the production of regulations that choke the nation's business community, from large corporations to small businesses. There was no mention of the Keystone XL pipeline, which his own
"He advocated raising the minimum wage when all that will accomplish will be to reduce jobs and drive up costs to consumers.
"He dramatized Obamacare by using examples of people he said benefitted from it, but made no mention of the millions who have or will lose their health care plans and even their choice of a personal physician."
Founder, The National Anxiety Center
Policy Advisor,
312/377-4000
"
"But the other level of his focus on micro-management highlights the inescapable political paternalistic mindset in which he thinks:
* He knows what wage government contractors should pay their workers;
* He knows how pre-kindergarten children should be taught;
* He knows how businesses should organize their use of energy in their manufacturing of products;
* He knows how long people should be financially able to be unemployed between jobs while looking for employment;
* He knows how divergent income inequalities should or should not be in America;
* He knows how to create career opportunities for young people and the type of education they should have available;
* He knows the type and quality of health insurance and medical care people should receive.
"This is why he has faced much of the congressional opposition, over which he is clearly frustrated. Many people in
"The president's government-imposed 'one-size-fits-all' solutions to what he considers to be America's 'problems' are in stark contrast to the diversity of America, and the more reasonable and common-sensical view that people in their own circumstances and with their own knowledge can far better handle their own problems than someone in a far-away national capital with none of the real micro-knowledge of people's lives. This partly explains the president's low poll ratings. People come to resent the arrogant 'do-gooder' who presumes to know better how people should live than those people themselves."
Dr.
Professor of Economics
312/377-4000
"
"In elections, candidates make competing appeals to the people and provide them with the information necessary to be able to make a choice. Citizens also engage with one another, debating and deliberating about the best options for the country. Especially in an age of so many nonpolitical distractions, it is important to preserve the space of a general election campaign -- from the early kickoff rallies to the last debates in October -- to allow voters to think through, together, the serious issues that face the nation.
"The integrity of that space is broken when some citizens cast their ballots as early as 46 days before the election, as some states allow. A lot can happen in those 46 days. Early voters are, in essence, asked a different set of questions from later ones; they are voting with a different set of facts."
Professor of Law,
Policy Advisor, Legal Affairs
312/377-4000
"
Economics Professor
312/377-4000
"I fully support the president's proposal to increase the minimum wage. However, if this will work as the president believes to increase employment and reduce income inequality in America, would it not do the same for other countries as well? Therefore, America should eliminate foreign aid and tell our former aid recipients to simply raise their minimum wage. If it works for us, it will work for them as well.
"Our aid recipients are likely more savvy than our president and I would expect few to accept the advice."
Professor,
312/377-4000
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