This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, January 26, 2011.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The President has laid out what he thinks about the State of the Union.

Shortly after the address, I sat down

with Cato Institute Vice President Gene Healy and Cato Research Fellow Julian Sanchez

for a live video chat that was provided on Facebook. The archive video of our discussion is available there.

All right, hello to our friends on Facebook. I'm Caleb Brown. I'm talking now with Vice President of the Cato Institute, Gene Healy and

Research Fellow of the Cato Institute. Julian Sanchez, we've just seen the State of the Union

address given by President Barack Obama.

And just to jump right into it, the President cast this sort of as winning the future.

And I want to get your your guys opinion on this idea that the Sputnik moment that is

intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at the United States relates to our current troubles of a sluggish economy and high

unemployment.

Jean?

Yeah, it's not really clear what the equivalent challenge is and why the Sputnik metaphor is a good one, but I guess it's a good one because it argues for,

historically for a lot of state-led investment.

He also made a lot of references to the space program.

And I don't think our national defense effort in the Cold War really had much to do with American prosperity in the succeeding decades.

I mean, we did out of the space program, we got Tang and a few other good things but I don't really think that is

the what should be the driver of the American economy.

Julian Sanchez?

Yeah I mean it was a little troubling.

...