Statement on the State of the Union Address

Press Release

Congressman Scott DesJarlais (TN-04) issued the following statement in response to President Obama's State of the Union address:

"Tonight, President Obama laid out his blueprint for addressing the critical issues facing our country over the course of the upcoming year.

"While I was pleased that President Obama chose to focus on the need to create jobs, put a stop to the growing federal deficit and work with Republicans in a bipartisan manner, I hope that we will finally see a change in his actual agenda and not just in his tone and rhetoric.

"Many people in Tennessee are hurting financially and have had to make tough decisions to cut back on their personal spending in order to make ends meet during these difficult economic times. Meanwhile, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have asked the American people to foot the bill for Washington's reckless spending spree that has only succeeded in growing the size of the federal government and increasing the deficit -- not the number of American jobs.

"Whether through enacting a massive trillion dollar so-called "stimulus" package that failed to stabilize our economy and halt the rising unemployment rate or ramming through a government takeover of the health care system that will raise taxes and hurt small business, it seems that the Democrats have been more focused on enacting policies that will actually hurt job creation, not help it.

"Moving forward, if the President is serious about embracing a new direction for creating jobs, controlling spending and working in a bipartisan fashion, then he can count on Republicans to share our ideas and help in developing real solutions to fix our nation's problems.

"We simply cannot return to "business as usual". The American people have sent a clear message that the era of deficit spending and big government legislation is over. They want us to govern within our fiscal means and cut the spending in Washington. We owe it to the American people to be good stewards of the taxpayer's money, and that is what I aim to do."

Source