Lucas Statement on President's State of the Union Address

Statement

LUCAS STATEMENT ON PRESIDENT'S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

U.S. Third District Congressman Frank Lucas made the following statement in response to the President's State of the Union address Monday night:

"The President gave a hopeful message in his trademark straightforward style tonight, and has presented an aggressive but achievable agenda for his final year in office.

"Of primary concern is the flagging economy, and the President reiterated his request for Congress to pass an economic stimulus package. I will support a stimulus package only if it can be implemented quickly enough to have a positive impact, and as long as it provides incentives for both businesses and consumers. This issue is aggressively moving forward now, so I believe a package will be passed by Congress very soon.

"But more important to the economy would be making the across-the-board tax cuts permanent that we passed in 2001 and 2003. If we don't, then Congress will effectively be raising taxes on the American people at the worst possible time - during an economic downturn.

"As we all know, the earmark process has gotten out of hand, so I'm also hopeful that the Democrat leadership in Congress will heed the President's call to cut in half the number of earmarks in spending bills, in an effort to reduce federal spending.

"In Iraq, we still have difficult security and political issues that remain unresolved, but the situation there is significantly better now than a year ago when the President first called for a troop surge in Iraq in order to help bring stability to the nation."

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