Mississippi's Washington Delegation Reacts to Presidential Address to Congress

Mississippi’s lawmakers had mixed reviews of President Obama’s address to Congress. Peter Granitz has more from the Capitol.

Few lawmakers disagree with the speech’s main themes of creating jobs, revamping the country’s energy system, and reforming health care and education. The speech drew some praise for its bipartisan tone.

Senator Roger Wicker says he hasn’t missed an address to Congress in his fifteen years in Washington. This one, he said, was different than the rest.

“The president left the podium on the Republican side of the chamber and shook hands with Republican members of the House and Senate first tonight. Never seen that before.” (.13)

That’s not to say the fiscally-conservative Senator was completely converted on the new president’s heavy spending.

“I look forward to the debate on health care reform. I think it’s long overdue, every American needs to be covered. And I think we can all start from that frame of reference. Then come the specifics. And I think it will make it difficult for him to get it passed this year, which was his stated goal tonight.”

Freshmen Republican Gregg Harper was quick to point out the speech’s lack of specifics.

“He said we had a dependence on foreign oil. But there was no plan in there. If we’re going to worry about the impact that it’s having on our country, it would’ve been nice to have something in there about drilling for oil in ANWAR, expanding our domestic supply of oil and natural gas.”

But second district Democrat Bennie Thompson had nothing but praise for the speech. He said lawmakers gasped when President Obama announced plans to cut two trillion dollars from the budget.

“If people are talking about this is the age of transparency, this is the age of no-pork spending, then the people that gasped are probably people who had pork in previous budgets.”

Thompson says he’s not worried about any of his special projects getting nixed because he doesn’t have any.

The President will get more specific on his plans this week: He could unveil his budget as early as Thursday.

From Capitol News Connection, I’m Peter Granitz, M-P-B News.