Turning to Iran, he said the world has unified in opposition to the regime’s work toward a nuclear weapon. “Let there be no doubt,” he added: “America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will
BY STEVEN THOMMA | MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama used an election-year State of the Union address Tuesday night to frame the national debate not as a referendum on him but as a pivotal decision on how to save the American dream.
He boasted that the nation’s economy has improved, albeit slowly, from the depths of the Great Recession. “The state of our Union is getting stronger,” he said.
But he said the middle class has been losing ground for decades, and he urged a new agenda of taxes and government spending to tilt the playing field away from the rich and powerful and more toward the rest of the citizenry.
Once, he said, Americans believed “the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement. The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive.”
The speech fleshed out a broad vision Obama laid out in December in a speech in Osawatomie, Kan., one modeled after a 1910 speech that Theodore Roosevelt gave in the same town laying out themes for what would become the Progressive Era.
Among his proposals: a 30 percent minimum tax on millionaires, a minimum tax on companies that ship jobs overseas coupled with tax cuts for those that keep factory jobs at home, and a $200 billion, six-year plan to build roads, bridges and railways with money saved from bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Obama opened his speech declaring victory in bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq, eliminating Osama bin Laden, and beginning to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. That enables the country, he said, to “think about the America within our reach.”
Republicans countered with a similar vision of a more prosperous America where everyone shares the bounty. But they offered a far different agenda, and castigated Obama for policies they said have made things worse.
“As Republicans our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life’s ladder,” said Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, giving the official Republican response. “We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots. We must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves.”
He said that Obama hurt the economy with over-regulation of business, a refusal to allow domestic energy production, and proposals to raise taxes on the rich that amount to dividing the country.
Obama insisted that his agenda is what’s needed to put the country back on track.
Under the broad theme of helping build a fairer economy, Obama laid out proposals in four categories: helping restore U.S. manufacturing, improving U.S. energy independence, teaching workers new skills for a changing economy, and tax increases he called “a renewal of American values.”
He proposed that millionaires pay a minimum tax of 30 percent, putting a precise number to the idea he proposed last year. The proposal comes as Republicans vying for his job all have proposed cutting taxes for the wealthy, arguing they are the ones who create jobs.
Obama also vowed ever more oversight of Wall Street, saying he had directed Attorney General Eric Holder to create a Financial Crimes Unit to investigate and prosecute large-scale financial fraud.
He boasted that manufacturing — for a century the stepping stone of upward mobility — is adding jobs again for the first time in more than a decade.
Obama spent most of the hour-plus speech on domestic issues, which dominate the public’s priority list. Late in his oration, he noted the “wave of change” sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa. Of Syria, wracked now by violent repression, he said, “I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the force of change can’t be reversed, and that human dignity can’t be denied.”
Turning to Iran, he said the world has unified in opposition to the regime’s work toward a nuclear weapon. “Let there be no doubt,” he added: “America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.”
