Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) tells National Review Online that he liked certain aspects of President Obama’s speech — namely his support for an earmark ban – but as someone who was elected last November on a message of greater financial restraint in Washington, Lee was a tad perplexed.

“To me it sounded a lot more like a spending speech than a cutting speech,” he says. “The president talked about all the investments he is going to make, which I understood to mean more spending. That’s not what the American people want to see.”

“All the areas he mentioned – transportation, education, innovation – can do good for people,” he continues. “But it’s not a question of how much can we buy with an endless pool of money, it’s a question of whether we have the money to spent on these problems and whether the federal government should be funding them to begin with.”

Lee says he hasn’t had a chance to see the responses from Reps. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) and Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.) but that he looks forward to hearing what they had to say.