1. Chelsey Wade
FYS100
01/31/14
State of the Union Response
At the beginning of Barack Obama’s speech that he spoke at the State of the Union, he describes
how well our country, America, is doing as a whole. He says that our unemployment rates are down,
business is doing well, and more oil is produced here in America than anywhere else in the country. I
really liked when Obama said, “Opportunity is who we are.” It is as if everybody now and days is so
wrapped up in the Republican or Democratic Party that we never look at the possibilities and potential
that America truly has. It sounded very promising when Obama said that we will beat other countries in
the next high-tech manufacture jobs. The one thing that bothers me about that is the fact that our
country is so worried about competing with other countries that we never actually take a moment to
reflect on ourselves as a country and think what we could possibly fix without trying to just beat
everyone else. Obama also talks about our energy policy and how we have reduced our total carbon
pollution significantly. I like that Obama said the shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen
overnight, but the fact that we are self-aware of how polluted our country truly is and I hope we
continue to work on making the environment a safer and cleaner place to live, because after all, we only
have one Earth to live on. What really grabbed my attention was when Obama talked about college
education. This is affecting myself and everyone else here at Marshall personally. I complain all the time
about how expensive college really is. I think it is fantastic that Obama wants to mainly focus on science
and mathematics because of all the new diseases and new technology that is out there happening right
now. I just think that there should be a more effective and better way to help out college students and
being able to afford college; however, it is great that the number of students receiving college degrees
has increased significantly. Overall, I think Obama did a good job of presenting all this information, but I
never really know if some of his plans would follow through.