When the president of the United States speaks on “the State of the Union,” he always gets lots of attention, regardless of his party or personal popularity. It is then customary for a spokesman from “the other party” to give a “response.” Whoever is chosen for that task, he usually gets much less attention.
So it was this year when Virginia’s Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell was selected to give a much less highlighted, and shorter, speech on television to “answer” President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress.
But Gov. McDonnell made an important point: “Today, the federal government is simply trying to do too much.”
That should be obvious as President Obama is proposing to spend more than a trillion dollars beyond the amount of money collected from too-high taxes on the American people — in a time of painful economic recession.
“In the past year,” Gov. McDonnell said, “over 3 million Americans have lost their jobs, yet the Democratic Congress continues deficit spending, adding to the bureaucracy, and increasing the national debt on our children and grandchildren.”
Then on the big issue of ObamaCare socialized medicine, which the president is insisting upon imposing upon the American people, Gov. McDonnell said, “All Americans agree, we need a health care system that is affordable, accessible and high quality. But most Americans do not want to turn over the best medical care system in the world to the federal government.”
In just those two major points, Gov. McDonnell highlighted the basic contrast between the Obama view of government and that of more realistic Americans.
The Obama approach is not “free.” It would cost trillions of dollars in debt, would lose jobs, would enlarge expensive government and would have other negative effects upon the American economy.