[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 9 (Monday, January 25, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Page S170]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           STATE OF THE UNION

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I look forward to the President's State 
of the Union Address on Wednesday, as I know most Americans do. There 
is a lot of talk about how the President might reconnect with the 
American people. The President himself said a couple of days ago, after 
Massachusetts elected a Republican Senator, that perhaps he had not 
been talking to the American people directly about core values. If I 
may do this in a respectful way, I would like to make a suggestion 
about what the President might say on Wednesday evening.
  To reconnect with the American people, I suggest in his State of the 
Union Address the President talk first about creating jobs; second, 
about reining in the national debt; and make terrorism his third 
subject. Then it would not hurt my feelings one bit if he stopped his 
speech right there and focused his unswerving attention on jobs, debt 
and terrorism until he has them all headed in a better direction. After 
all, in my view, the President struggled in his first year not only 
because his agenda veered too far to the left but because he took too 
many big bites out of too many apples and tried to swallow them all at 
once.
  Years ago, I learned that a Governor who throws himself into a single 
issue with everything he has for as along as it takes can usually wear 
out everybody else. I think that is true for Presidents, too. In 1952, 
President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, ``I shall go to Korea.'' Then he 
focused on that one problem, ended the conflict, and Americans thanked 
him for it.
  I hope President Obama would focus with Eisenhower-like intensity on 
jobs. In the 1980s, I found the best way to do that was not to try to 
turn my State, Tennessee, upside-down all at once. We were then the 
third poorest State in the Union. My goal was raising family incomes. I 
didn't try to turn it upside-down all at once, but I went step by 
step--sometimes learning as I went--amending banking laws, defending 
right-to-work, keeping debt and taxes low, recruiting Japanese industry 
and then the auto industry, building four-lane highways so the auto 
suppliers could get to the auto plants, and finally a 10-step ``Better 
Schools'' plan which included centers and chairs of excellence for 
higher education.
  In my view, a step-by-step job strategy for the country should 
include tax cuts, less regulation, certainty so people can make their 
plans, free trade, a balanced labor climate, good educational 
opportunities, and clean but cheap energy. Unfortunately, the President 
has too often proposed higher taxes, more regulation, uncertainty, 
protectionism, expensive labor policy, higher college tuitions (as 
Medicare costs are passed on to States), a national energy tax, and new 
costs for the businesses that we count on to create jobs.
  As for debt, Democrats in Congress are trying this week to raise the 
national debt limit by $1.9 trillion, an amount that is more than the 
total Federal budget in 1999. To be sure, President Obama inherited 
some of this, but he has run up a $1.5 trillion debt in just one year 
and it took President Bush 8 years to accumulate a $2 trillion debt. 
The solution for a boat sinking because it has a hole in it is not to 
put more holes in it.
  Finally, the President deserves credit for his decisions on Iraq and 
Afghanistan but bringing terrorists from Guantanamo to Illinois, trying 
the 9/11 mastermind in New York City, and failing to interrogate the 
Christmas Eve ``underwear bomber'' in Detroit shows dangerous confusion 
about how to deal with terrorists.
  When I became Governor, Ned McWherter, then the Democratic house 
speaker, said, ``I want to help because if the Governor succeeds the 
State succeeds.'' In the same way, I want President Obama to succeed. 
The best way for him to do that, I respectfully suggest, is to declare 
an end to the era of the 2,700-page bills and to work with both 
political parties, step by step, on jobs, debt, and terrorism to help 
Washington re-earn the trust of the American people.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Dakota is 
recognized.

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