State of the Union: "Act two" of Obama's 2nd term
When the curtain rises on President Obama's State of the Union speech tonight, the White House wants it viewed as "Act Two" - a follow-up to the national goals and policy objectives of which he spoke 22 days earlier on the West Front of the Capitol.
"The president has always viewed the two speeches, the inaugural address and the State of The Union, as two acts in the same play," said press secretary Jay Carney yesterday.
Though Mr. Obama has given more speeches this year on his proposals to stem gun violence and overhaul immigration policy, the "core emphasis" of his speech tonight is the economy.
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"You'll hear from the president a very clear call for the need to take action to help our economy grow and help it create jobs," said Carney.
That includes the showdown with Congress over the mandatory spending cuts due to take effect starting March 1.
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The president will urge Congress "not to shoot the economy in the foot," said Carney, by agreeing to his plan to avert the across-the-board spending cuts which the White House portrays as mindless and severe.
The president will again make it clear he wants a "balanced" plan that calls for additional tax revenue from America's top earners.
"My message to Congress is this: let's keep working together to solve this problem," the president said Saturday in his weekly address.
But Republican leaders say Mr. Obama already got his tax hikes as part of the "fiscal cliff" package, and now needs to focus exclusively on reductions in spending.
It'll be Mr. Obama's seventh appearance before a Joint Session of Congress and he'll be taking the rostrum aware that the national unemployment rate still hovers just under 8 percent and economic growth fell into negative territory at the end of 2012.
"The economy is not in a worse place than it was before," said Carney, pointing to the progress made since Mr. Obama's first State of the Union Address. "We were in economic freefall."
He said the president will make the case that "we are at a moment when the economy is poised to continue to grow...to build on the job creation that we've achieved -- over 6.1 million jobs created by our businesses over the past 35 or 36 months."
Carney added the president will propose further steps to grow the economy in a way that makes the middle class more secure and helps those trying to climb the ladder into the middle class.
"That is absolutely going to be his focus in the second term as it was in the first term," said Carney.
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Why have the repubs taken the flag pins off?
And what's up with the Dems green ribbons?
Since being elected in the midst of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, caused by George WMD Bush, President Obama has the following record;
Unemployment down to 7.8% from 10.5%
Dude, half the country, like you, are on Obama Food Stamps. The only thing Obama will be doing is assuring his Obama Food Stamp Army that you can be assured of four more years of the same
When you have a "divisive" person as a leader, people draw lines.
Draw your own conclusions...
Wactc him tonight to blame others, Congress (let's not forget that the Senate is Democrat led) and the past ( aka Bush) but nary a finger to himself.
What Obama has done and what could have been, Mr President, wasn't probably the best course or the best result for the country.
You may say what it would have been if I had not..., but maybe it could have been one heck of a lot better if you had kept your mitts off.
Since Reagan we have this whole thing upside down.