Quantcast
Channel: Schleitheim » Politics
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 8

Poverty, Prisons, and War in the State of the Union

0
0

There were three topics I was looking for in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night: poverty, prisons, and war.

I was wondering if he was actually going to utter the words poor or poverty. I was hoping he would mention prisons and the prison system. (Good luck on that one.) And then I wanted to compare that to how often he mentions war and military activity.

For my purpose here, I’m only looking at when the President used the words themselves. While there are direct and indirect connections to these topics, right now I’m only looking at when he said the words poverty, poor, rich, wealthy, prison, war. Then, I wanted to look at Senator Marco Rubio’s response in the same way.

Note: if you have a reference to add, please do so in the comments. If you want to argue that Obama or Rubio mentioned one of these subjects indirectly, please do.

President Obama on Poverty:

Study after study shows that the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road. But today, fewer than 3 in 10 four year-olds are enrolled in a high-quality preschool program. Most middle-class parents can’t afford a few hundred bucks a week for private preschool. And for poor kids who need help the most, this lack of access to preschool education can shadow them for the rest of their lives.

We know our economy is stronger when we reward an honest day’s work with honest wages. But today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong. That’s why, since the last time this Congress raised the minimum wage, nineteen states have chosen to bump theirs even higher.

Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families. It could mean the difference between groceries or the food bank; rent or eviction; scraping by or finally getting ahead.

Tonight, let’s also recognize that there are communities in this country where no matter how hard you work, it’s virtually impossible to get ahead. Factory towns decimated from years of plants packing up. Inescapable pockets of poverty, urban and rural, where young adults are still fighting for their first job. America is not a place where chance of birth or circumstance should decide our destiny. And that is why we need to build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class for all who are willing to climb them.

We also know that progress in the most impoverished parts of our world enriches us all. In many places, people live on little more than a dollar a day. So the United States will join with our allies to eradicate such extreme poverty in the next two decades: by connecting more people to the global economy and empowering women; by giving our young and brightest minds new opportunities to serve and helping communities to feed, power, and educate themselves; by saving the world’s children from preventable deaths; and by realizing the promise of an AIDS-free generation.

That’s four times he used either poor or poverty. But, I will take my own prerogative and add one more statement to this group. He didn’t mention poverty directly, but talked about the “wealthiest 1 percent,” which is part of a direct discussion on the poor.

Over the last few years, both parties have worked together to reduce the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion – mostly through spending cuts, but also by raising tax rates on the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.

President Obama on Prisons:

I saw the power of hope last year in Rangoon – when Aung San Suu Kyi welcomed an American President into the home where she had been imprisoned for years; when thousands of Burmese lined the streets, waving American flags, including a man who said, “There is justice and law in the United States. I want our country to be like that.”

Only one instance and it did not refer to our prison system.

President Obama on War:

These sudden, harsh, arbitrary cuts would jeopardize our military readiness.

After a decade of grinding war, our brave men and women in uniform are coming home.

Tonight, we stand united in saluting the troops and civilians who sacrifice every day to protect us. Because of them, we can say with confidence that America will complete its mission in Afghanistan, and achieve our objective of defeating the core of al Qaeda. Already, we have brought home 33,000 of our brave servicemen and women. This spring, our forces will move into a support role, while Afghan security forces take the lead. Tonight, I can announce that over the next year, another 34,000 American troops will come home from Afghanistan. This drawdown will continue. And by the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over.

We are negotiating an agreement with the Afghan government that focuses on two missions: training and equipping Afghan forces so that the country does not again slip into chaos, and counter-terrorism efforts that allow us to pursue the remnants of al Qaeda and their affiliates.

All this work depends on the courage and sacrifice of those who serve in dangerous places at great personal risk – our diplomats, our intelligence officers, and the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. As long as I’m Commander-in-Chief, we will do whatever we must to protect those who serve their country abroad, and we will maintain the best military in the world. We will invest in new capabilities, even as we reduce waste and wartime spending.

We will keep faith with our veterans – investing in world-class care, including mental health care, for our wounded warriors; supporting our military families; and giving our veterans the benefits, education, and job opportunities they have earned. And I want to thank my wife Michelle and Dr. Jill Biden for their continued dedication to serving our military families as well as they serve us.

But defending our freedom is not the job of our military alone.

Police chiefs are asking our help to get weapons of war and massive ammunition magazines off our streets, because they are tired of being outgunned.

Now, let’s look at the response from Senator Marco Rubio.

Senator Rubio on Poverty:

But his favorite attack of all is that those who don’t agree with him – they only care about rich people.

They’re immigrants, who came here because they were stuck in poverty in countries where the government dominated the economy.

So Mr. President, I don’t oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich. I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbors.

Senator Rubio on Prisons:

Not mentioned.

Senator Rubio on War:

And I am especially honored to be addressing our brave men and women serving in the armed forces and in diplomatic posts around the world.

And tonight, he even criticized us for refusing to raise taxes to delay military cuts – cuts that were his idea in the first place.

We don’t have to raise taxes to avoid the President’s devastating cuts to our military.

Again, this was not meant to be an in depth exercise. I know Senator Rubio is the current darling of many Republicans, and there is talk at this stage of getting him into the White House. The same was said about Sarah Palin, and then she was cast aside.

While I have no vested interest in who is emperor, my interest is in their choice of language and whether or not they are going to make it harder for us Christians to care for the poor, the imprisoned, and those ravaged by war. For now, Mr. Rubio is being groomed to be king. How will this king-to-be treat the poor, treat those imprisoned, and treat our fellow humans around the globe?


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 8

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images