Rogers Responds to State of the Union Address

Statement

U.S. Rep. Harold "Hal" Rogers (KY-05) released the following statement in response to President Obama's State of the Union Address:

"The people of southern and eastern Kentucky are counting on "a year of action' in this President's sixth year in office. With more than 8,000 coal miners looking for work, and coal communities like Leslie County suffering unemployment well above the national average at 18 percent, our people need more than rhetoric from this Administration. We need federal support for the SOAR initiative: Shaping Our Appalachian Region, to help revive the communities that are now left with struggling Main Streets and closed family businesses. President Obama touted an all-of-the-above energy plan, but the one resource he left out, was again coal. Our Central Appalachian coalfields need action, not more regulations, to "strengthen the middle class.'

"With this new year, families and businesses are starting to feel the real impacts of Obamacare. Folks are now looking for new doctors, and searching for a way to replace the specialized care they had been receiving. And rather than having affordable plans, too many families are now taxed with unaffordable insurance premiums and deductibles. Obamacare has been a disaster nationwide and it's time for an affordable solution.

"2014 kicked off with a renewed spirit of bipartisanship, as evidenced by the overwhelming support and passage of the Omnibus bill -- finally putting the federal government on an operational budget. America is ready for "a break-through year.'"

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