Local Political Analysts React to State of the Union Address

Tuesday night, President Barack Obama gave his sixth State of the Union Address. News 25 sat down with local political analysts to find out what Mississippians need to know from the President’s speech. President Obama says, "The state of the union is strong."

In his State of the Union Address, the President highlighted U.S. success in a growing economy, job creation, and affordable healthcare, but for Mississippians, Democratic analyst, Robert Hooks, says the most important program to look at is the President’s plan for free community college. Hooks says, "There is no state in the country that will be better helped by the President’s idea of making community college tuition free, because two out of every three jobs Mississippians are going to be competing for over the next decade will require community college."

Republican analyst, Howie Morgan, says they key in this program, and many others, is long term funding. Morgan says, "We want a better educated workforce, but we have to figure out how to pay for this idea and we have to figure out how Democrats and Republicans can work together."

With four military bases on the Coast, veteran benefits and campaigns like Joining Forces, are also important to south Mississippians. Hooks also says, "Seven hundred thousand military veterans and their wives or spouses getting jobs is not a cheap item on a list. That’s profoundly important to America, to our consciousness, as well as to our economy."

President Obama also says, "So to every C.E.O. in America, let me repeat: if you want somebody who’s going to get the job done, hire a veteran." Whether it’s free community college or getting veterans back in the workforce, the President will need to work with Republicans, like the Mississippi delegation, to get things done.

Morgan closes, "I am sure the Republican delegation from Mississippi is looking forward to working with President Obama on things we can all agree on, but it has to be bipartisan and it has to have the President reaching out to Republicans and working with them, not lecturing them."