BIlly Long: President's speech offers no real solutions

Seventh District Congressional candidate Billy Long offered these thoughts on President Obama's State of the Union message:

Tonight, President Obama outlined his plans to revive his failed health care proposal and curtail government spending, but his speech fell far short of offering real solutions to the nation's rapidly-growing problems.

"The solution to the high cost of health care is not a big-government takeover," Billy Long explained. "What we need instead is the proven success of free market competition and fair business practices. Congress should make insurance companies compete across state lines, which would reduce prices and encourage better service. Insurance companies should be required to fulfill their obligations to premium payers by covering pre-existing conditions. We should also allow more flexibility in how insurance plans are structured so that people are not forced to buy insurance for conditions that they don't want to have covered."

"The problem with the President's health care bill is the same problem you see with all of his proposals," Billy continued. "The President seems to have an unshakable faith in the power of big government when he should be placing his trust in the strength of the American people. I welcome the President’s call for a spending freeze to help curb the enormous deficits we have had – according to Fox News, the 2009 deficit of $1.4 trillion was 9.9% of our GDP and the 2010 deficit looks to be of a similar size. Unfortunately, the President is not serious about his ‘spending freeze’ – it would still have the government borrowing over one trillion dollars per year and would save only 250 billion dollars over the course of a decade, far less than what is needed to balance the budget. Borrowed government money won't fix the economy. Only individual Americans and small business owners can create jobs and grow our economy. Every dollar the President borrows for pork barrel spending and political favors just makes the task before American entrepreneurs that much harder."