Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo today attended a joint session of Congress to receive President Obama’s fourth State of the Union address. Maria D. Pangelinan, a member and former officer of the Guam Society of America, joined the Congresswoman as her guest and viewed the address from the House Gallery.

“President Obama remains consistent in his message that we need to act now to grow our economy and create more jobs—that America is strong only when we have a thriving middle class,” said Congresswoman Bordallo. “His speech was bold and echoed sentiments shared in his inaugural address. He made it clear that we can’t cut our way to prosperity; rather, we must invest in our future. Smarter spending cuts are critical to ensuring that we can continue to invest in our nation’s infrastructure, education and important social safety net programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security; these investments help ensure long-term economic growth.

I also appreciated the President’s sentiment that while vigorous debate is needed in Washington, it should not overwhelm the common ground that does exist between policymakers. There are looming deadlines that we must deal with, sequestration, in particular. It is incumbent on Congress to act now and make compromises that will prevent these damaging cuts from going into effect because it impacts all government spending. Sequestration would be particularly detrimental to defense spending and our national security, and would certainly affect the timeliness in rebalancing our forces in the Asia-Pacific region. That said, we must be mindful that tighter budgets mean we must target funding in strategic ways, and I will continue to fight to insure that Asia-Pacific requirements are prioritized. It will require difficult decisions in the Pentagon as well as on Capitol Hill.”