Trey Reacts to Obama's SOTU

Here's Secretary of State Trey Grayson's reaction to President Barack Obama's State of the Union:

As he always does, President Obama delivered a great speech tonight. However, his proposals amount to mere lip service to the massive problems facing our country and do little to address our skyrocketing deficits and national debt.

We need a spending freeze right now – not next year. We need across the board cuts to the double-digit increases in discretionary spending we’ve seen this year over last year. We should hold spending at FY 2009 levels – before the massive increases took place.

Further, it’s disheartening that while the President talks about making American businesses more competitive and creating jobs, he advocates policies like a massive national energy tax that will make our businesses less competitive and drive jobs overseas, especially in coal-dependent states like Kentucky. We must all remember that the government does not create jobs. Government should get out of the way and free America’s small businesses to innovate, grow and create jobs.

I hope the President is serious about wanting bipartisan cooperation, and I hope Democrats in Congress will stop their go-it-alone, government-knows-best approach and begin to consider more common sense, conservative, fiscally responsible approaches to finding real solutions to our problems.