WASHINGTON D.C. - The early Wisconsin reaction to President Obama’s State-of-the-Union address fell along party lines, with Democrats praising the speech and Republicans 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 quote, “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 infra-structure repairs – and raising the minimum wage to nine-dollars-an-hour by 2015, with automatic adjustments each year for inflation. Milwaukee House Democrat Gwen Moore supports those measures, plus Obama’s call to return the 34,000 U.S troops from Afghanistan within a year. Republican Governor Scott Walker said Obama quote, “glossed over the serious fiscal problems … and failed to deliver an honest plan for real reform.”

 

 

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