State of the Union Comparisons

President Barack Obama will present his first State of the Union Address in a few short weeks. President Obama will have a lot of questions to answer. Many of these same questions are some that past presidents had to answer.

There are three former presidents that I believe President Obama’s speech will compare to.

The first president that would compare would be President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In the 1939 State of the Union Address, President Roosevelt spoke about the early beginnings of World War II. A war that he saw coming and a war that he knew he had to be a part of. With the U.S. on the ropes, Roosevelt had to balance the act of preparing a nation for war and keeping a nation economically sound and resourceful.

Roosevelt’s speech will have some similarities with what I think Obama will talk about including balancing a possible war on terror along with the growing economic problem. The speech had 3,912 words and lasted approximately one hour, but there was one message that has some relevance to what President Obama will talk about.

“Above all, we have made the American people conscious of their interrelationship and their interdependence. They sense a common destiny and a common need of each other. Differences of occupation, geography, race and religion no longer obscure the nation's fundamental unity in thought and in action,” Roosevelt said.

President Roosevelt uttered these words shortly after talking about financial, economical, and energy problems facing the nation. President Obama should be asking the people to help each other during this time just as Roosevelt did.

The next president is John F. Kennedy.

President Kennedy’s speech was approximately one hour as well and consisted on 5,284 words. President Kennedy’s speech talks about the peril facing our nation as well as the fall of the economy. This speech still talks about the nation recovering from the great depression. The great depression was one of the worst times in American economical history, however today’s economic status is testing that statement. Kennedy was working on an idea that would help the nation build and become better internationally and economically.

“The present state of our economy is disturbing. We take office in the wake of seven months of recession, three and one-half years of slack, seven years of diminished economic growth, and nine years of falling farm income,” Kennedy said in the 1961 State of the Union Address.

Our economy is facing a lot of these same situations after we spent so much money on war and not so much money on the economy.

Finally, President William “Bill” Clinton.

President Clinton dealt with many of hardships that president Obama will have to deal with in the next few years. Although Obama’s situation is more severe there are similarities in the storyline. Bill Clinton talks of a nation that has to work together to survive the economic crisis at hand. His speech was 3,771 words long and lasted approximately 45 minutes.

“It has been too long — at least three decades — since a President has challenged Americans to join him on our great national journey, not merely to consume the bounty of today but to invest for a much greater one tomorrow,” Clinton said. This statement is very powerful. President Obama needs to rely on the nation to help out with the growing economic crisis. I believe that he will also ask for the help of the community to fund the modern day War on Terror.

President Obama will also talk about some of the same issues that he has already touched on for example, the issue on Health Care, which he talked about in his Health Care speech on September 9, 2009.

The two other speeches that he will relate to will be his Inaugural speech on January 20, 2009 and his Election Victory speech on November 4, 2008. These speeches talked about the economy and the modern day War on Terror.