Mr. President … That 'Buzzsaw' Was The American People Saying, 'Stop.'

This morning after our weekly conference meeting I joined other House Republican leaders at a press event to discuss President Obama’s State of the Union address tonight. What I told the press gathered in the U.S. Capitol this morning is that tonight, President Obama needs to prove he’s listening to the American people. It’s not the message, it’s his job-killing policies. The President must do more than rhetorically ‘pivot.’ He must scrap his job-killing agenda and work in the bipartisan way he promised during the campaign.

The American people don’t want this government takeover of health care, and it’s time to put it out of its misery. No more tricks. Instead of just a half-baked spending freeze, how about real budget caps that can be enforced? And instead of more government ‘stimulus’ bills, we need real solutions to help small businesses create jobs.

Last Friday, on a visit to my home state of Ohio, the President complained about this “buzzsaw” of opposition his health care bill faced. But what you call a buzzsaw, Mr. President, I call the American people. They’re saying ‘enough is enough’ to this big-government, job-killing agenda. And they’re asking “where are the jobs?” So we’re going to listen to the President, but we’re also going to continue to hold him accountable and offer our better solutions.

My Republican Leader website will host a live blog of President Obama’s State of the Union address tonight. The GOP Leader Blog will provide real-time fact-checking of the President’s remarks and lay out Republicans’ better solutions to the challenges working families are facing. House Republicans have had great success over the last year using the Internet and social media to connect with the American people – Politifact.com confirmed that House GOP dominates the Democrats on Twitter, YouTube and other social media in Congress. This live blog will also allow visitors to take advantage of the open commenting feature to exchange ideas with House Republicans and each other. Working together, we can hold Washington Democrats accountable.

Coverage of the State of the Union will be available at http://gopleader.gov/blog or through my Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/gopleader.