State of the Union

Tonight, the twenty-seventh of January, President Obama gave the State of the Union address.  It lasted nearly two hours and he addressed many topics that are near and dear to almost all Americans, some that affected me possibly more than others.

• College tuition costs.
• Don't Ask, Don't Tell
• Clean energy

College tuition is a pain.  Even after Florida Bright Futures (which is a fantastic system allowing me to go to school for thousands less than most people around the nation), I'm still left with nearly a thousand dollars of tuition to pay for, on top of housing, books and spending money for food and laundry.  It's been nearly 4 months that I've been without part-time work, and before that I was without part-time work while at school for my entire college career.  Tallahassee is the hardest city to find work in in the state of Florida.  "In this economy, a high school diploma no longer guarantees a good job."

Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a policy started by the American Military to keep gay and lesbian people from fighting side-by-side with straight men in our armed forces.  This policy was started under the Clinton administration back in the 1990's and it states that gay men and women can serve, but they must prove to be celibate, which is nearly impossible. “I will work with Congress and the military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.” 


Clean energy is something that President Obama has said that he'd fight tooth and nail for.  Nuclear power is currently used on many Naval aircraft carriers and submarines.  Why can't we harness this clean and safe energy to be used on land to power a grid for much longer and much more efficiently than we currently do with natural gas?  Solar energy is already used in many homes in Florida to heat swimming pools, why can't we harness the energy of "The Sunshine State" to power our homes and vehicles?   “…to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, and more incentives.”




President Obama, you're not on the campaign trail anymore, stop trying to fight for your party to keep the supermajority in the Senate.  Focus on what's going on in Washington and get things done that really need to get done.