Obama's State of the Union

[cancerinform]

Summary: don't look back (when people were dependent on oil), look forward, your competitor is not your neighbor, but somebody in China or India.

So what's your opinion, where the US should be heading in the future?

[jAQUAN]

We should return to a place where anyone who works 40 hours a week should be able to afford a car, a house, medical care and a vacation once a year. It will never happen and the opposing party will never let the party in power get things done. The SOTU address is pure theater.

[silverx2]

too bad its going to take another civil war before we will be in a position for one side to actually try and make progress for our nation.

[Frets]

It was the first time in a long time I've skipped SOTU. Obama is a great speaker, bit even he misses the message.

Where to I think we should be going?
Stop both wars now. Yes we are still in Iraq even after they told us to leave.
The taliban is not going away and we are no closer to finding OBL then on 911
Initiate the single payer option.
The health care industry got richer not poorer because of it and people still can't get the heatlth care they deserve.
Increase the tax on the wealthy to help pay down the debt.
Decrease school tutions so the kids of today will have opporitunities.

Put tarrifs on imported goods so US manufactuers have a fighting chance. (Every other country in the world does)

Regulate Wall Street.

[gerbick]

I'm waiting on how folks will ultimately turn the SOTU into a negative.

Guess we need a realist to come out and state the obvious:

Both wars were started by the prior president, there was no endgame planned.
The US needs to invest into a greener/cleaner power source for all of our needs creates jobs, enables the US to compete... **** that should have started 30 years ago.
We created the Taliban. Dismantling them will be harder than putting them together. The US 'dun goofed.
Health care... no solution will make anybody happy. Limit malpractice lawsuits, fine those that turn folks away.
Increase the tax on the wealthy - the Republicans didn't clap on that one.
Have school tuition based on family ability to pay as well as grade point average (for low-income).
Legalize textile hemp, start up the southern textile plants (more jobs in the South), tariff any/all imports on any product based around that (ropes, clothing, work clothes, et al).
**** AIG.

Apparently people want stuff direct, but aren't willing to do a damn thing about what's wrong with right now but point a finger.

[cancerinform]

It's interesting, looking at Europe one problem is similar: the difference between rich and poor is steadily becoming bigger, which will in the end result in former South-American conditions with large population of poor people and a small middle class. Another consequence is that the rich easily escape from their full contribution to society in form of taxes, which is an important factor in the big deficit. The future politics needs to adjust this difference. Obama has partly addressed this, but it will be difficult to do against the GOP.