This Ash Wednesday edition of "Wingin' It Wednesday" panelists Mike Stagg, Warren Caudle, and Carol Ross joined "Mornings with Ken and Bernie" to discuss the President's State of the Union address as well as Republican Marco Rubio and Tea Party member Paul Rand's response.

Here's what the panel had to say:

1. State of the Union...your reaction

Warren Caudle started us off:

I think it's nothing but a show regardless of who's up there bumping the gums.I noticed that Boehner was wearing a pink tie, Biden was wearing a lavender tie, the president was wearing a pale blue tie.
Same old thing of, "if y'all just work with me, we'll get everything done". The fault of this country is, almost every problem we faced was right there in that room. It was all of them. And they're all going to just sit in there and say, "It's not my fault it's your fault". The rest of this country is saying can't we just be adults.
The money is not in them getting along, the money is not in them solving problems, the money is in them keeping the pot stirred.

Mike Stagg added:

What we saw last night was a president entering his second term, backed by more than 50% of the people, with an agenda that is no longer the 'cleaning up the mess' mentality that he had going into the first term. He's returning to themes that he focussed his career on; improving the lives of the middle class. If the middle class doesn't thrive the rest of the country doesn't thrive.
The other piece is, clearly, we need to take a serious look at dealing with guns, who gets to have them, the kind of guns they get to have, and the ways they get to use them. We need to get a grip on who gets to have guns in this country, and what that right of ownership entails other than just getting to shoot people. I thought that was really driven home last night. I think the president is really going to get a lot done

Carol Ross countered:

Same old stuff. All those reliable standbys. Raise the minimum wage, mortgage refinance, green energy. The same old massive, government centric programs that have been failures at fixing anything. They've caused massive defects.
Now they're trying to scare us with the threat of sequestration, which came from the Obama administration, despite how much he try's to blame it on the Republicans in congress, it came from his own administration.
When Washington says cut, all they mean is a smaller growth in the increase in spending, it's never a real cut.

Warren Caudle, Carol Ross, Mike Stagg; KPEL 96.5
Warren Caudle, Carol Ross, Mike Stagg; KPEL 96.5
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2. Marco Rubio's Republican response

Mike commented:

I didn't bother with the Rand Paul thing. The Republican's problem is it doesn't matter who you put up there, if your delivering the same old speech it doesn't matter what your props are, the party doesn't have ideas that people are buying, and that's their basic problem. I predict we're going to see the fall of the Republican caucus in the next few months.
The President is not coming to take away anybody's guns. This lie on the right is not what this is about. It's about cutting off the supply of these type of guns to the United States, making sure that assault weapons aren't available to just anybody, and if you're buying a gun, making sure you've got the mental capacity to have that right.

Warren responded:

One of the things Obama said that I completely agree with was combining technical education with our mainstream education to train people for the workforce. And doing it in partnership with business. The problem is, our education system is so far gone that they fight any change, good or bad.
The thing I got about from Rubio's address, basically 80% of the things Rubio wanted to get accomplished was what Obama said he wanted. They throw out these platitudes about what they want to do, but the question is how are you going to do it?

 

Carol surmised:

The pundits all like to talk about the water lunge and that little bit of nervousness, but I think the way he'll come across to the average person is very sincere.
His vision was a clear contrast to the President's government-centric vision. Rubio laid out the Republican philosophy that you fix the middle class by fixing the economy, ensuring that people have jobs. That way you grow the middle class and they spend more.

Click on the play button below for the complete audio.

Now it’s your turn to tell us what you think about today’s Wingin’ It Wednesday topics. Who got it right, who got it wrong, and who was way off? Let us know in the comment section.

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