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Five Questions: The President should hold his Administration accountable to the American people

Will the President announce meaningful action on the IRS, NSA, economy, Benghazi, and Obamacare in his State of the Union address?

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today presented five questions Americans deserve to have answered by President Obama in next week’s State of the Union address.

“Americans all over the nation are asking questions about the economy, Obamacare, the IRS, Benghazi, and the NSA that aren’t being answered. However, as the President prepares his State of the Union address, he has signaled he has no intention of clearing the air,” Sen. Cruz said. “The lack of accountability in Washington is creating a crisis of confidence in this country, and under President Obama, trust in government is approaching record lows. It no longer seems like Washington is protecting America. Washington is protecting Washington. These are the questions I hear when I’m home in Texas, and these are the questions the President should answer in order to restore credibility with the people. The State of the Union will be stronger for it.”

Over the next several days, Sen. Cruz will focus on each of the following questions and the importance of why the President should answer them in his State of the Union address:

1. Will the President allow the Department of Justice to appoint a special prosecutor to fully investigate the IRS’s illegal targeting of conservatives? The President should be eager to prove he has clean hands on this issue. He professed to be angry and outraged by the IRS abuse. Will he pledge to stop new IRS rules that restrict the free speech of non-profit groups?

2. Will the President act to ensure that the privacy of law-abiding citizens is protected from unjustifiable violations by arms of the federal government such as the NSA, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Internal Revenue Service, and Department of Health and Human Services?

3. Will the President recognize that his economic policies have failed to create the millions of jobs that he promised and have, instead, reduced the labor force participation rate to its lowest level in decades? Will he commit to commonsense, job-creating policies such as the immediate authorization of the Keystone Pipeline, a moratorium on new regulations, and fundamental tax reform for every American?

4. Will the President call on Congress to form a Joint Select Committee to finally discover the truth of why four Americans perished in a preventable terrorist attack in Benghazi 16 months ago?

5. Will the President finally recognize that it was a mistake to ram through Obamacare on a party-line vote and that it is -- right now -- hurting millions of Americans? Will he take real responsibility for misleading the American people when he falsely promised “if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan” and “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”? Will he acknowledge that he doesn’t have the power to unilaterally rewrite the health law for powerful favored interests such as big business and Congress? And will he finally work with Congress to repeal Obamacare and start over, adopting instead reforms that will make healthcare more personal, portable, and affordable?

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