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U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger, who represents most of Iredell except for Statesville and the most northern and northeastern parts of the county, invited Sgt. Matt Cooke as his personal guest to the Jan. 28 State of the Union address.

Cooke was wounded five times using his body to shield others from the 2009 attack at Fort Hood in Texas. The wounds left Cooke disabled, and he now lives with family in Charlotte.

“Sgt. Cooke is a true American hero, willingly risking his life to save others. Our children should know his story and look to him as a role model,” said Congressman Pittenger said in a statement.

“Sadly, Sgt. Cooke has not received full recognition for his bravery because the Obama Administration refused to classify the Fort Hood massacre a terrorist attack. Despite being shot five times, Sgt. Cooke isn’t eligible for the Purple Heart and receives fewer disability benefits than his fellow soldiers wounded while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.”

Pittenger has cosponsored the Honoring the Fort Hood Heroes Act, which would redefine the Fort Hood shooting as a terrorist attack instead of workplace violence, and Cooke spent part of his time in Washington lobbying for the bill.

In response to the State of the Union address, Pittenger said President Obama made many lofty promises, but said history shows that Obama often breaks his promises.

“More Americans are uninsured now than when President Obama took office. Nearly 500,000 North Carolinians received cancellation notices due to Obamacare. President Obama’s expensive stimulus program never brought the unemployment rate anywhere close to the 5 percent he promised. And President Obama’s financial reforms are strangling job growth by making it harder for small businesses to expand,” he said in a statement.

“In typical fashion, President Obama is trying to shift the blame. Yet it is House Republicans who passed 25 pro-growth jobs bills in 2013. House Republicans have introduced a robust plan to replace Obamacare with common-sense healthcare reforms which lower costs without job-killing regulations.”

U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, who represents the remainder of Iredell, also attended the State of the Union address and criticized the president for continuing his trend of delivering speeches full of platitudes in support of a long list of policy goals that the White House will immediately forget.

“To give just one example, in his 2012 State of the Union, President Obama said he wanted ‘to cut through the maze of confusing programs,’ that make up federal workforce development system. The House passed a bill, the SKILLS Act, which would do just that. The SKILLS Act passed with bipartisan support, and fulfills a Presidential objective, but it is languishing in Harry Reid’s Senate,” Foxx said in a statement.

“As a final note, I disagree with the president’s contention that what most Americans want is for all of us in Washington to ‘focus on their lives, their hopes, their aspirations.’ Americans want Washington to stop interfering in their lives … The president needs to scale back his agenda, help rein in Washington’s endless appetite for spending and regulation and allow Americans to get back to work.”

http://www.statesville.com/news/pittenger-foxx-take-issue-with-president-s-promises/article_6049c26c-8a26-11e3-8dc6-0017a43b2370.html