By Cliff Vosberg

Contributing Writer

Every year, the new president of the United States of America delivers a speech. The State of the Union, to be exact. This speech outlines what this president plans on doing in their upcoming term. Our fantastic President Barack Hussein Obama just delivered his on Feb. 13. Our president, I must first say, is fantastic. Let’s first go through some things he did in his first term, shall we?

He made $500,000 on the job! Oh, but wait, we lost $600,000 with him in. But wait, we are stopping global warming by being green! Oh, but wait…all those emails were uncovered a couple of years ago, where all the scientists where saying how it was a natural cycle, but a great way to make some money. So that doesn’t help our argument about how great he is either.

What about Obama Care? That’s great! It’s going to raise everyone’s taxes and give health care to people who don’t work and live on welfare! Also it’s going to put a whole bunch of health insurances out of business. And one more thing—you have to pay for this! It’s a mandate; you pay a fine if you don’t.

But wait a second…America is a democracy, not a socialist government, so Obamacare is just going to screw over hard working tax payers and force socialist government on Americans. That’s not so good either. I could go on, trust me, but this is about the State of the Union.

In President Obama’s State of the Union, it has been estimated that he has lied 13 times to the American people, or just said things that contradict or are hypocritical to his true plans. The first is when Obama was talking about what built America, saying that America must go back to a time where any hard working person can come to America and, if they are hardworking, make a life for themselves.

Last summer, Barack Obama said, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” So every small business that an entrepreneur started didn’t actually build that according to Obama.

The second lie was about Medicare. Obama wants those who care about Medicare to accept modest reforms. Obama care will cut $716 billion from Medicare, hardly modest. The next was on budgeting. The democratically-controlled Senate hasn’t passed a budget in four years. That’s how long Obama has been in office. On top of this, Obama said, “Let’s agree, right here, right now, to keep the people’s government open, pay our bills on time, and always uphold the full faith and credit of the United States of America.” America’s credit rating has fallen for this first time in the country’s history under Obama.

The fifth lie was on oil. Obama said that the USA is producing more oil than we have in the last 15 years. When Obama took office, gas prices were $1.86. Now they are on the upwards of $3.40. Obama has done nothing but stop American oil drilling by shutting down offshore drilling, drilling bans and stopping the construction of the Keystone Pipeline.

The sixth ignorant comment was about the housing market. Obama said that the housing market is finally healing after the 2007 crash and home prices are rising. Also, that home purchases are up 50 percent. The home prices are rising because the prices have finally stopped dropping or are dropping slower. I know that my house is currently worth thousands less than it was. So it is currently a great time to buy because homes are worth next to nothing.

The next comment was about preschool, saying that every state needs to have a state-run pre-school. I guess having four-year-olds playing with blocks and singing miraculously drops crime rates and will up high school graduation rates. I’m not saying pre-school is bad, I went and it’s a good system, but I went to a private pre-school. There are tons of them; billions of dollars do not need to be spent on this.

The next comment that I found humorous was about the border. Obama said; “Real reform means strong border security, and we can build on the progress my Administration has already made – putting more boots on the southern border than at any time in our history, and reducing illegal crossings to their lowest levels in 40 years.” Let’s look at America: what job can you get without a GED? Nothing. You will not get hired almost anywhere. So why would anyone want to illegally immigrate to America now? There is still great opportunity here, but you have to have qualifications. It’s becoming more risk than gain to illegally immigrate to the USA now, which is why the rates are dropping.

Obama wants to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour across America. There is a federal minimum wage, then a state-set minimum wage. As a poor college student, this sounds great! But this will make it extremely difficult to find a summer job because this will drop employment due to business not being able to afford as many workers. The government hires more employees than the private sector at this time; this is not good.

The next is on foreign relations. Israel is our best ally in the Middle East. Obama has been ignoring cries for help from them; he has destroyed foreign relations with them. Also, Benghazi: for those that do not know, Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty all died in a terrorist attack on the American Embassy in Benghazi. The Embassy begged multiple times for extra security and it was ignored. When the terrorist attack came, two former Navy SEALs gave their lives to try to save the ambassador and were killed in action. According to Obama, in the beginning this was not an act of terror. He has now switched to saying this was an act of terror. Obama is trying to cover up the fact that neither himself, nor anybody else, did anything to prevent this attack.

The next was on gun control. This topic has been chewed up and spit out, and I do not wish to go deeply into this argument. But Obama turned his whole speech into an anti-gun rally. He talked about a shooting in Chicago, in his home state of Illinois. Chicago has the strictest gun laws in the country, so I’m not sure what Obama’s argument states. It does show that strong gun laws do not stop gun violence. In 2011, there were 496 murders in which a hammer or club where used, compared to 323 connected to a rifle. Looks like we need to register our hammers and have stricter laws on those bad boys!

The next was on voting. Obama said, “We should follow the example of a North Miami woman named Desiline Victor. When she arrived at her polling place, she was told the wait to vote might be six hours…Desiline is 102 years old.” Seems like people in North Miami are just mean! I don’t know about you, but if there was a woman who was 102 years old and I was in charge, I would let her vote and be on her way. I’m not sure who is proud of forcing a 102-year-old woman wait six hours to vote. But I do tip my hat too Miss Victor on exercising her right at the ripe age of 102!

Lastly, Obama’s last words, “God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.” I ask God to bless America every day. This is one thing that I can agree with Obama on. He has increased my faith in God through fear for my future in this great nation.

We live in a nation where when a singer overdoses and dies, Obama orders all flags to be flown at half-staff and gives a speech about it. However, when Chris Kyle, an American hero, gets murdered, Obama does nothing. Chris Kyle has the most confirmed sniper kills in American history. It scares me to think that Obama will do so much for Whitney Houston and so little for Chris Kyle. Kyle was an American hero and needs to be respected and remembered as such. I am disappointed and ashamed that Obama did nothing for this man.

I love this country. America is a beautiful place where opportunity flourishes. You and I have a dream that we know we can achieve. I want my children to be able to have their own dreams. It scares me that they may not if the country continues on the road that it is on with President Obama. God bless America. God bless every dream that any person in this nation has. You may need every blessing that God can give.