U.S. Senator Ken Salazar

Member of the Agriculture, Energy and Veterans Affairs Committees

 

2300 15th Street, Suite 450 Denver, CO 80202 | 702 Hart Senate Building, Washington, D.C. 20510

 

 

For Immediate Release

February 2, 2005

CONTACT:    Cody Wertz – Press Secretary

                        202-228-3630

Jen Clanahan – Deputy Press Secretary

                        303-455-7600

 

SEN. SALAZAR RESPONDS TO PRESIDENT'S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ken Salazar responded to the President’s State of the Union Address tonight.

“Tonight the President outlined his agenda for America. I am mindful our troops overseas and their families are eager to have them home. Our first priority must be to get the troops, our veterans and their families the health care and support they have earned.”

I have one test on the president’s proposals: are they good for Coloradans. When his proposals meet that test, I will work with him to get things done for Colorado and our country. Too often in Washington special interests urge us to fight one another just because we belong to different parties. It is time for this to stop and for Washington to focus on what needs to be done.

The President’s Social Security privatization plan in its current form is not good for Coloradans or for our Nation. I am alarmed about the estimated $2 trillion cost of the President’s program which will greatly add to the huge federal deficit already created under his fiscal policies. He proposes taking away from Social Security benefits, instead of supplementing them. His proposal is unacceptable at this point because it will gravely injure the very people who social security is supposed to help, the most vulnerable people in our country: the elderly, the disabled, and families who have lost their breadwinner.

And I do think there are other areas the President needs to focus on with greater urgency: retooling our health care system, homeland security and revitalizing rural America. We must work together – Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike -- to ease the crushing burden of health care costs – it is the single biggest domestic issue that affects each and every one of us everyday, we must maintain the fact that the highest duty of any government is the protection and safety of its people and we must find new ways to revitalize the families, businesses and churches of forgotten rural America.”

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