On January 20th, 2015, President Barack Obama gave his annual State of the Union Address, where he touched on many modern-day issues. Here's what I have to say about some of the topics that stood out to me:
1. The working class family
From his beginning anecdote about the struggling Erler family, it was clear that Obama was trying to cater to the working class with his speech. Rhetorically, this was a pretty clever thing to do -- with the touching stories and saddening statistics, his audience must have felt compassion towards the Americans he was describing, and ergo, felt more sympathetic to him as well. Also, people are way less likely to protest a bill or proposal after they've heard that it's going to be used to help the poor and hardworking families who are merely trying to support themselves.
2. Free community college
Oh my gosh. This one was pretty crazy for me. Due to my middle-class upbringing, I had never really had the option of not going to college. For me, it was a given: I was going to graduate from high school and go to a decent college and live a pretty okay life. That was that. But a week ago, I was talking to one of my friends about what we were going to do after senior year, and she said, "I'm working on trying to find scholarships right now so I can pay for college. If I can't find any, to be honest, I probably won't be able to go to college." I guess in my naivety, a part of me had always just assumed that higher level education was something that everyone was able to experience. But for many, without any scholarships, the idea of college is just a fantasy. On one hand, I do understand that free community college could be a heavier load on taxpayers paying for the colleges. But on the other hand, how would free community college hurt the United States? What, are smarter citizens going to destroy our economy somehow? If this proposal becomes reality, I am going to be really excited to see how it turns out.
Also, can we just talk about Obama's sick buuuuurn????? You might not agree with his policies, but you have to agree with the fact that he KILLED IT.
Overall, the State of the Union was pretty optimistic (which all of them probably are because nobody wants to talk about all the issues with our government like 2 weeks into the new year, okay). One of my favorite lines from the whole thing was this one:
1. The working class family
From his beginning anecdote about the struggling Erler family, it was clear that Obama was trying to cater to the working class with his speech. Rhetorically, this was a pretty clever thing to do -- with the touching stories and saddening statistics, his audience must have felt compassion towards the Americans he was describing, and ergo, felt more sympathetic to him as well. Also, people are way less likely to protest a bill or proposal after they've heard that it's going to be used to help the poor and hardworking families who are merely trying to support themselves.
2. Free community college
Oh my gosh. This one was pretty crazy for me. Due to my middle-class upbringing, I had never really had the option of not going to college. For me, it was a given: I was going to graduate from high school and go to a decent college and live a pretty okay life. That was that. But a week ago, I was talking to one of my friends about what we were going to do after senior year, and she said, "I'm working on trying to find scholarships right now so I can pay for college. If I can't find any, to be honest, I probably won't be able to go to college." I guess in my naivety, a part of me had always just assumed that higher level education was something that everyone was able to experience. But for many, without any scholarships, the idea of college is just a fantasy. On one hand, I do understand that free community college could be a heavier load on taxpayers paying for the colleges. But on the other hand, how would free community college hurt the United States? What, are smarter citizens going to destroy our economy somehow? If this proposal becomes reality, I am going to be really excited to see how it turns out.
Also, can we just talk about Obama's sick buuuuurn????? You might not agree with his policies, but you have to agree with the fact that he KILLED IT.
Overall, the State of the Union was pretty optimistic (which all of them probably are because nobody wants to talk about all the issues with our government like 2 weeks into the new year, okay). One of my favorite lines from the whole thing was this one:
"It is amazing what you can bounce back from when you have to…we are a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, very hard times."