State of the Union

At 9pm Eastern this evening, President Obama gave his second State of the Union address.

One positive moment in Obama's speech occurred as he stressed the importance of the family in raising and shaping a child.

Obama also stated that America should "out-innovate, out-perform, and out-build" other countries. It seems to me that this statement of encouraging America to surpass other countries in what it produces. It seems a little strange that he would make such a statement encouraging the United States to be the best when near the beginning of his presidential term he dismissed the notion of American Exceptionalism.

While he showed some semblance of desiring to cut spending (e.g. no more government subsidies to gas companies, no earmarks on legislation), his language supported further spending with regard to building high-speed railways and giving money to those who produce clean energy.

Another subject of current public interest, the status of healthcare reform, did make a cameo in Obama's speech. His remarks regarding the Republicans effort to repeal healthcare were quite telling. He approached the issue with the usual mantra of willingness to work with people on both sides of the aisle with good ideas for improving the healthcare reform bill. However, he made it clear that he was very much in opposition to the idea of repealing the current bill. He exhorted Congress not to repeat the battle that had been waged over the past two years, but to move on. Apparently he does not believe that the 2010 midterm elections indicated the American Public's disdain for the healthcare reform bill passed by Congress in the spring of 2010.

Republicans must not be in agreement with Obama's sentiment, since it appears that those in the Senate appear to be making a push to bring the health reform repeal up for a vote.It should be interesting to watch this play out in the days ahead.

Now's the Time for Some Audacity

As the new session of congress begins, there is already talk of the potential effort to repeal the healthcare legislation passed in 2010.

While it is questionable as to whether such efforts would be successful at this time, given the democratic majority in the senate and president, a move in the House to repeal the healthcare bill would send a message of discontent regarding the bill's contents.

As a 23 year-old grad student I am enjoying being able to stay on my parents' health insurance plan for the time being. However, this small source of financial aid is not worth the loss of freedom that will take place as government gains further control over America's health care system.

Some of my concerns regarding the bill include its provisions of healthcare for illegal immigrants as well as the probability that employers will be more inclined to put their employees on government-run health insurance rather than paying additional money to retain employee insurance plans from private health insurance companies.

Will conservatives have the courage to push forward with a repeal? We shall see.

As this new session of congress, I will be praying that God will grant the members of congress courage and wisdom as they approach issues such as the repeal of the 2010 healthcare legislation. Will you do the same?