Obama Pledges To Talk More About Making Decisions In Second Year

Story by Jacob Zlomke 

| Published Feb 9, 2010

In Obama’s first State of the Union address last week, he touched on many issues from policy with China to the hurt economy. The speech was generally well-received by most Democrats, who were excited about what Obama offered in his speech.

“It will be exciting to see what this next year holds,” said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, “especially after all the talking he talked about doing this year.”

Pelosi said it was refreshing to see a president that will not act on decisions immediately — or even within a year of bringing them up.

Obama promised in his speech to bring up more issues the American people find important and not do anything readily noticeable about them for quite some time.

“I will continue to lead in the way I did in the first year,” Obama said, “by talking about taking action on hot button issues like Iraq, Afghanistan, health care and the economy. And then, after we talk about it a considerable amount, some kind of decision might be made. If we’ve talked about it enough.”

The reaction on the Republican side was less than favorable for Obama and his team. Mitch McConnell, minority leader in the Senate, said he was disappointed in how Obama handled the major issues.

“The way he wants talk about doing things is irresponsible as the leader of this country,” McConnell said. “If we expect our current problems to be fixed, we can’t just talk about doing things. First, we should talk about them for a really long time. Then we should decide. It sounds very similar to Obama’s plan, but it’s not. There are a lot of minute details that are different.”

“Americans have a long history of talking about decision-making, and that history is not about to fall by the wayside,” Obama said.

In the past, when the United States has been brash and rushed into things, the situation ended up poorly, Obama said. He looks forward to the coming year in confidence, and he trusts that Americans have the perseverance to talk about everything that needs to be done and give it some time — and maybe sleep on it for a few months before deciding on what to do.