GOPers Focus on Jobs in SOTU Responses

President Obama's State of the Union address was swiftly followed by a flurry of rebuttals from the GOP, offering a diversity of responses that highlight the ideological conflicts in the party, the Washington Post notes. Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the highest-ranked female Republican in Congress, delivered the official rebuttal.

• Rodgers, chair of the House Republican conference, said she offered a "more hopeful, Republican vision—one that empowers you, not the government," the Hill reports. She emphasized her three children, along with standard Republican talking points like getting rid of red tape, and said instead of Obama's "year of action," there should be a "year of real action" that doesn't make people's "lives harder with unprecedented spending, higher taxes, and fewer jobs."

• Utah Sen. Mike Lee delivered the Tea Party rebuttal, and he focused on inequality in America, which he blames on big government, Politico reports. He touched on abortion, same-sex marriage, and NSA snooping, but saved much of his ire for ObamaCare, which he described as a "Godzilla that has robbed working families of their insurance, their doctors, their wages, and their jobs."
• Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who delivered the Tea Party response last year, focused on free enterprise in a response posted on his YouTube channel. "The ticket to the middle class is not higher taxes on the very businesses that must create jobs," he said. "Economic growth will come when we lower taxes for everyone."

(More Cathy McMorris Rodgers stories.)