Wednesday night President Obama will be broadcast into American living rooms to tell us about the shape our country is in. But you don’t have to wait until tomorrow to hear his talking points. We are here to cut the crap and get to the truth. The State of the Union is perilous.
The first thing to tackle is the economy, which still has not rebounded from its collapse. The national unemployment rate is still hovering around 10 percent, which doesn’t bode well for soon-to-be college graduates. Good thing the print journalism industry is in such good shape that we at the Alligator don’t have to stress about getting hired when we leave UF — not.
The other big item on the national political landscape is health care reform. Political games can be fun. We would normally be on the edge of our seats with the popcorn ready at the prospect of a thrilling filibuster — a thrillabuster, if you will. But when we’re dealing with health care, we’re talking about people’s lives hanging in the balance. We think health care is a basic human right, and you’re welcome to disagree. But we’ll let you be the one to tell someone they can’t have a life-saving procedure because they don’t have the funds.
And now the one thing that could always make us feel better about ourselves — no matter how stressful our day — is gone. We could always count on turning on “Jersey Shore” to remind us that, hey, at least we’re better than somebody.
We need the president and Congress to recognize how to make our country better, so we can get our superiority fix from living in the best country in the world, not from trashy reality TV.
Correction: This column originally stated that the State of the Union Address was Tuesday night. It will be held on Wednesday night.
