January 12, 2016
Topline Message
The State of the Union is Strong. After seven years of Democratic leadership in the White House, our country is more secure than ever, the economy is adding jobs at a record pace, and the American people are safer and healthier than ever before.
While Republican presidential candidates continue their doom and gloom race to the bottom, President Obama is going to remind us that our best days are still ahead. The American people have come too far to let a Republican drag us back. But we have to elect a Democrat as the 45th President to keep America moving forward.
Key Points
• We’ve made remarkable progress since President Obama took office seven years ago. Americans today are better off and more secure than before he took office
o Nationally
o Economically
o Personally
• When the last Republican President left office, our country was losing 800,000 jobs a month — 8 million lost in total in the Bush recession — whileforeclosure signs littered streets across America, and too many Americans had to choose between bankruptcy and health care.
• Under President Obama:
o America has enjoyed 70 months in a row of private sector job growth, creating more than 14 million new jobs.
o We’ve added more net private sector jobs in the last 12 WEEKS [851K] – than were added in the last 12 YEARS of Republican Administrations [747K]
o Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, more than 17 million Americans have healthcare coverage they didn’t have, no one can be turned away for preexisting conditions, and our uninsured rate is the lowest ever recorded.
o And just last week the President took executive action to turn the tide against the gun violence affecting so many of our communities by keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.
• So when you hear doom and gloom from Republican candidates, remember, the American people have come too far, fought too hard. They’ve already made America great.
• Tomorrow we’ll hear the State of our Union is strong. There’s still much to do to ensure every American has a fair shot, and that’s what’s at stake in these elections.
• We need to keep America moving forward, not let a Republican president drag us back.
Expanded Talking Points
• There’s still much to do…
o to build an economy that gives everyone in America a fair shot.
o to make America safer by using all the elements of our national power without offending our allies and alienating those we need to bring terrorists to justice.
o to strengthen the economic security of every community so that no one has to worry that they’ll graduate college only to be burdened by student loans, or face bankruptcy because they get sick, or be fired simply based on who they love.
• We need a President who keeps the economic, personal and national security of the American people moving forward.
• The last thing we need is a Republican President to drag us backwards.
• Whether it’s Trump, Rubio, Cruz, or any of the other Republican presidential candidates, each of them would:
o repeal the Affordable Care Act, causing 19 million people to lose their health insurance.
o return to the same failed economic policies of George W. Bush that were in place when we were losing 800,000 jobs a month.
o defund Planned Parenthood, oppose equal pay for women, roll back equality for the LGBT community, and gut voting rights laws.
o continue to stall comprehensive immigration reform.
o block commonsense reforms to curtail gun violence, at a time when 33,000 Americans per year are being killed by guns.
o And every single one would take us back to the reckless, go-it-alone foreign policy that destabilized the Middle East in the first place.
• Tomorrow night, the Republican Party’s response to President Obama’s speech will come from South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley.
• Haley has wreaked havoc on the economy in her state, and exemplifies exactly why the we don’t need a Republican president making the same mistakes at the national level.
