Less criticism, more solutions

In his column printed Jan. 28, Cal Thomas criticized the State of the Union speech as expected. The theme of his comments was the speech did not hide the president’s liberal agenda.

He concluded with the comment that “the Republican challenge is to stop the president’s liberal agenda while making the case for a better one.”

If the Republicans would accept that challenge our country would be far better off. Instead, they have consistently worked to not present a better agenda.

Until 2007, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency. Rather than put forward an agenda to control our federal debt, they increased it from $5.7 trillion in January of 2001 to $10.6 trillion when President Bush left office. They took three years of balanced budgets and turned them into a disaster of “borrow and spend.” Never before had we experienced military engagement and tax cuts at the same time.

In the years they had control of Congress and the White House they did nothing to reform a health care system that both parties agreed was broken. Now they want to repeal health care reform but they propose little that will prevent it from returning to the broken system that existed before 2010.

If Thomas will use his column as a platform for criticism, he should have the integrity to also use it to propose solutions for the Republican Party to sponsor.

Royce M. Blackwell

Elgin