In the News

By WRN Contributor

 

The Wisconsin Congressional reaction to President Obama’s State of the Union address fell along party lines with Democrats praising the speech and Republicans, for the most part, slamming it.

 

The Democrat Obama spelled out an agenda that includes various economic initiatives without expanding the federal deficit. He said cutting the federal deficit is not an economic plan but Janesville House Republican Paul Ryan disagreed. The House budget chair said Obama “doesn’t fully appreciate the challenge of our national debt and its threat to our economy.”

 

Wisconsin’s newest senator, Democrat Tammy Baldwin, applauded Obama’s plan for investments in job training and advances in manufacturing. The president wants to create 15 manufacturing institutes to stir up new innovations. He also made pitches for new energy research, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, $50 billion dollars for infrastructure repairs, and raising the hourly minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.00 by 2015, with automatic adjustments each year for inflation.

 

Republican Senator Ron Johnson released a video saying, “Once again his (Obama’s) proposed solution was a demand for increased spending – he called it investment.”

 

Milwaukee House Democrat Gwen Moore supported Obama’s measures and call to return 34,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan next year.

 

GOP Congressman Reid Ribble of Shorewood also agreed that the country should end the war in Afghanistan but said he supports a faster withdrawal than the nearly two-year timetable laid out by the president.