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Valley viewers split on success of speech
By Denise Dick
BOARDMAN
Supporters were inspired by President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech while detractors wanted to hear more about spending cuts.
Sixteen supporters gathered at the Boardman home of Penny Wells for an Organizing for America watch party. OFA is a project of the Democratic National Committee.
“We think it was great,” Wells said. “It was a powerful speech, inspiring, visionary.”
The president tried to bring in all sides and be uniting, she said.
“It’s not one side or another, but we can all work together and as a nation we can do great things,” Wells said.
She’s optimistic about that happening.
“We need to try as a country to work together and put aside the rhetoric and work for what’s best for the American people,” she said.
Wells liked that the president is willing to work with Republicans to reach compromise.
“He said there are things in the healthcare bill that need to be tweaked,” she said. “When you pass a bill, there are ways that it can be improved.”
Jerome Parm of Youngstown also attended the watch party.
“He is a great speech maker and the speech was excellent,” he said. “He really brought it home and made it personal about his vision for the country, and he wants us to help him move this country forward.”
The president’s emphasis on quality-of-life issues, including education and advances in technology, resonated with Parm.
“We need to learn how to kindle these new industries which will create new jobs in this city,” he said.
Moving toward more electric automobiles by 2015 and putting more efforts toward clean energy will help the local economy too, Parm believes.
Mark Munroe, Mahoning County Republican Party chairman, saw it differently.
“I think it was impressive the tone that appeared to exist in the halls of the House,” he said. “I was gratified to see that.”
But he said he was struck by the fact that the President thinks that government is still the best tool we have to solve our problems.
“Republicans take the position that that is not the case,” Munroe said. “Entrepreneurs are the best source of innovation in this country.”
He also disagreed with the President’s suggestion that it’s enough to place a freeze on federal domestic spending.
“We think the federal government has grown way too far, gotten way too fat,” Munroe said. “We’re looking for meaningful reductions in government spending, a rollback to 2008 levels. In that way, the speech was disappointing.”
U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette of Bainbridge, R-14th, said getting the country out of its financial problems will take hard work and sacrifice.
“The focus must be on getting the nation back to work, cutting the deficit and reducing out-of-control spending,” he said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, said Ohio’s problems require members of Congress to work together.
“While I may have ideological differences with Republican members of our delegation, we share the understanding that the problems Ohio is facing transcend party lines,” Ryan said in a statement.
“Congress cannot encourage job growth or wealth creation when we restrict ourselves to ‘left’ or ‘right’ – what we really need is a unified, bipartisan effort to move America forward.