Some Good Points in President Obama's State of the Union Address

President Obama's first State of the Union Address on Tuesday, January 27, 2010 proved one thing for absolute certain: President Obama is a great orator. Now if only the politicians in Washington would listen.

President Obama is an eloquent speaker, almost to the point of captivating. He injects a sense of humor appropriately. One thing that really bothered me about Obama's State of the Union address was in his opening dialogue, "Madam Speaker, Vice President Biden, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans" [1] he did not look directly at the camera upon saying "fellow Americans." A small gesture, perhaps, but if Obama is addressing the American citizens tuning in to his State of the Union Address, then he needs to face them, as well.

Be that as it may, Obama made some points of interest in the State of the Union Address that I agree with wholeheartedly.

He was right when he said that Republicans and Democrats need to work together for the American people. We are who they work for.

He was definitely right when he said we need to stop giving tax breaks to corporations that send their jobs overseas - jobs that Americans desperately need right now. Discouraging businesses from sending jobs to foreign countries is something that should have been done years ago.

But one of the most important points Obama made during his State of the Union Address was that politicians work for U.S. citizens, not the other way around. Obama didn't use those exact words or specific terms verbatim. But that was the general idea of his comments.

"We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions," is one of Obama's comments that I felt addressed the issue of who is supposed to be serving whom.[1]

Politicians in Washington tend to forget they are our employees. Our votes gave them their jobs and our hard-earned tax money pays their salaries. Salaries most of us won't earn after a lifetime of working for one company.

What most of the politicians in Washington don't realize is that it isn't Uncle Sam's signature on their paychecks. That's the signature of 300 million American citizens because that money comes directly from the sweat of our brows to pay them to break a sweat for us.

And that includes President Obama.

So, if we offer them their job opportunities (through voting) and we pay their salaries, doesn't it stand to reason that we can fire them as well?

Technically, I suppose, we do fire them after specified years of employment when we can vote them out of office.

But consider this: were some of these fellas actually working in the private sector, so to speak, most of them would have been let go after their 90-day probationary period. Or, at least, some of them would have quite a few written warnings in their employment portfolio.

I guess it's a good thing they don't ask the voting American citizens for reference letters.

Sources:

[1] News Yahoo - Text of Obama's State of the Union Address
ABC News