U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan gave the weekly Republican address on Saturday. The Alaska senator took the opportunity to bash President Obama for what he says is poor economic growth, more reliance on food stamps and a drop in homeownership.
“We can do so much better for America,” Sullivan said. “But President Obama tells us differently. He lowers expectations by calling his very weak economic record the ‘new normal.’ He has even taken to bragging about his administration’s economic record.”
Sullivan did not list solutions in the five-minute speech but did say it’s important to recognize a problem.
“Strong economic growth made the United States the greatest country on Earth,” Sullivan said. “We have a moral imperative to recognize that we have experienced a lost decade of economic growth and opportunity, and we have to change this.”
President Obama, in a recent press conference, painted a much different picture, saying the U.S. has enjoyed record job growth and rising wages, despite a grim economy overseas.
“We’ve got to do everything we can to strengthen the good trends and to guard against some dangerous trends in the global economy,” Obama said May 6. “And if the Republican Congress joined us to take some steps that are pretty common-sense, then we could put some additional wind at the backs of working Americans.”
Obama says Congress should fund infrastructure and raise the federal minimum wage.
Liz Ruskin is the Washington, D.C., correspondent at Alaska Public Media. Reach her atlruskin@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Lizhere.
