On January 12, President Obama delivered his eighth and final State of the Union. In it, he laid out four big questions that he believes the country should answer:
America currently has the strongest, most durable economy in the world. We are experiencing the longest streak of private sector job creation in history, while cutting the deficit by three-quarters. But the economy changing in profound ways. More wealth is concentrated at the very top and it is harder for people to pull themselves out of poverty.
The president proposed making college affordable (including two years of free community college), reducing student loan payments, and strengthening Social Security and Medicare. He acknowledged the major differences in how the political parties view healthcare, but wants Congress to focus on things everyone can support, like expanding tax cuts for low-income workers who don’t have children and changing outdated regulations.
Making technology work for us and not against us is important, especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change and protecting an open Internet.
President Obama announced that the National Institutes of Health had been given the strongest resources in over a decade to fight cancer. After dismissing those who deny climate change, he said that seven years ago, the U.S. made the single biggest investment in clean energy in history by using wind and solar power. We’ve cut our imports of foreign oil by 60 percent and cut carbon pollution and changed the ways we manage oil and coal resources.
America is the most powerful nation on earth. We spend more on military than the next eight nations combined. It is a dangerous time, but we are threatened less by evil empires and more by failing states. Al Qaeda and ISIL pose a direct threat because even a handful of terrorist who place no value on human life can do a lot of damage. But they do not threaten our national existence. They are not representative of one of the nation’s largest religions.
We have been successful a cutting off financing, disrupting plots, stopping flow of fighters, taking out leadership, oil. Even without ISIL, instability will continue. We can’t take over and rebuild every country that falls into crisis; we learned those lessons in Vietnam and Iraq. We have used “principled diplomacy” to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran and avoid another war.
The president urged Congress to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Asia, which cuts 18,000 taxes on products made in America. He said that isolating Cuba in the past failed to promote democracy and asked Congress to lift the embargo. Leadership means a wise application of military power and rallying the world behind causes that are right. We should reject politics that targets race or religion and that insulting Muslims doesn’t make us safer.
Better politics doesn’t mean we have to agree. Our Founding Fathers distributed power and expected us to argue. But democracy requires basic bonds. One of the few regrets of his presidency is that strife between the parties has gotten worse.
Washington needs to reduce the influence of money. Regardless of party preference, our collective futures depend on everyone’s willingness to uphold our duties as citizens: vote, speak out, stand up for others.
Related Link:
The White House has put together an extensive Web page outlining the ideas President Obama expressed in his speech. You can examine the data, visuals, and much, much more by visiting the site.
Republican Response
As is custom, a representative from the opposing party gives a formal response. This year is was South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. She said that in the past seven years, the president’s record has fallen short of his promises, dismissing the notion that the economy is strong and saying that our country is facing the greatest terrorist threat since 9/11. Frustration is what the American people are feeling and the Republican Party has the obligation to fix it.
As the daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley grew up understanding that her family had the opportunity to do anything, as long as they worked hard to do it. She called for Congress to fix a broken immigration system. There was a lesson to be learned from the non-violent response to the violence that happened in South Carolina where nine people were killed by a racist shooter.
In what many believe was a reference to candidate Donald Trump, Haley said you didn’t have to be “the loudest in the room to make a difference.” If the Republicans take control of the White House, there would be lowered taxes for working families and there would be less spending and debt. She said called for honoring the Constitution “in its entirety,” calling out the Second and Tenth Amendments in particular. She closed by saying that the United States is being tested but that we have always risen to the challenge.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Response to the State of the Union speech is likely to influence the campaigns of all of the presidential candidates. Pick at least two and find out what specific points they addressed and how they would change them as President.
