Hensarling Responds to State of the Union
Hensarling: “President Obama’s ideas have already been turned into reality, and reality is showing that they not only failed—they are making the economy worse.”
WASHINGTON – House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) issued the following statement today in response to President Obama’s State of the Union address.
“Because the president cannot run on his record, he has turned to the politics of envy and is trying to divide America. He cloaks his class warfare rhetoric under the guise of ‘fairness,’ but what is fair about doubling-down on ideas that have already failed to revive our economy and are causing historic pain for the American people?
“Three years ago, President Obama told us that if we passed his trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ plan, his health care law, and the Dodd-Frank Act, then the economy would grow and jobs would flourish. He got his policies; America did not get the results. The president’s ideas have already been turned into reality, and reality is showing that they not only failed—they are making the economy worse.
“Almost two million more Americans have lost their jobs since President Obama took office, while the nation is stuck in the longest period of sustained high unemployment since the Great Depression. Gas prices have doubled, new business start-ups have fallen to a 17-year low, and the number of Americans relying on food stamps is at an all-time high. According to the Census Bureau, almost half the country is now living in either poverty or low income. What’s ‘fair’ about any of this?
“The president may talk about a ‘new era’ for manufacturing and the middle class, but just last week he buried 20,000 shovel-ready jobs when he disapproved of the bi-partisan, environmentally-reviewed Keystone XL energy project in order to please a segment of his base. Clearly for this administration, people still come second to politics.
“Rather noticeably, the president forgot to mention that today marked the 1,000th day since his fellow Democrats in the Senate even bothered to pass a budget. Forcing the government to operate without a budget is just one way the president and his party have taken our spending-driven debt crisis from worrisome to catastrophic.
“Without spending discipline, raising taxes will not solve our nation’s debt crisis and could seriously harm small businesses. Fairness is found not in taxing some people more but in subsidizing them less. Let’s scrap the tax loopholes. Let’s end the special interest taxpayer subsidies the president defends—like those he gave to Solyndra—and stop his administration’s bailouts.
“It’s a new year, and President Obama must begin to consider new ideas. Some have already been turned into legislation, such as the 27 bipartisan jobs bills passed under the House Republican Plan for America’s Job Creators awaiting the Democrat-run Senate’s approval. It is time for the president and his party to give our jobs crisis the priority it demands so that the American people can get the jobs and economic recovery they so desperately deserve.”
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For additional information, contact:
House Republican Conference Press Office (conferencepress@mail.house.gov)
