Obama State Of the Union Speech Live

Impact

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In his second inaugural address, President Obama described a vision for the course of this country to come. The president proclaimed that the patriots of 1776 "gave us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed."

He then states that when times change, so must we — our principles require new responses and ideas to new challenges and in order to preserve our individual freedoms, we must take collective action. 

The president certainly alludes to the role of government being the "Steward of the Common Good" and that we must do things together, as one nation. This is a call to action. We must address these challenges head-on with the ideas of young people across the country, who will eventually inherit this country's opportunities and challenges. Challenges such as student loan debt, immigration, jobs, climate change to name a few, in which Millennials have identified being priorities for the President's second term.

In order to for us to build an America that lasts, we must first create a government for the 21st century to address new challenges with new and innovative solutions. However, there is a growing frustration that our systems are not well prepared to tackle the complex challenges ahead of us; challenges that require all of us to create solutions for. Yet less than 30% of millennials believe that they have a voice in government. 

The Obama administraton needs to work with organizations such as the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network, the nation's largest student policy organization, which just recently release a blueprint for 21st century governance. Government by and for Millennial America, a report tackling some of the most difficult and divisive questons of our time.

Using this generation's unique ethos and commitment to pragmatic problem-solving, millennials across the country have collaborated to design their vision for a 21st century democracy and reject the idea that our system is too broken, too stagnant, and too outdated. They have identified the parts of the system that need to be fixed while articulating what a true democracy should look like.

Tonight, the president needs to outline a plan for the 21st century that welcomes young people's ideas to toward creating a better system which is  more effective, inclusive, and transparent. The millennial generation is not ready to give up on the great American experiment of a government by and for the people.