The Guardian
State of the union address: Obama pledges to fight for a fairer America
• US president sets out stall for re-election
• Promises to make wealthy pay fair share
• Warns Republicans not to stand in the way
• Trumpets Osama bin Laden killing
By Ewen MacAskill
has used his state of the union address to launch his 2012 re-election campaign, with a populist speech portraying himself as the champion of working-class America against the small, wealthy elite he claimed is protected by the Republicans.
As the Republicans tore strips off one another over tax and wealth in the Florida primary to choose the party's nominee to face Obama, the president set out a strongly populist agenda, promising to tackle the inequality gap. He touched on issue after issue raised by voters, from the power of Wall Street to the pervasive influence of money in politics, and offered proposals for dealing with them.
In one striking passage, delivered in a joint sitting of the Senate and the House, Obama said the defining issue of the present time was how to keep alive the promise of America as a land of opportunity. "No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules," he said.
"What's at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values but American values. We have to reclaim them."
Obama said that in the months left before the election, he was prepared to work with both sides to get proposals implemented. But he warned that if Republicans engaged in "obstructionism" , as the White House claims they did throughout last year, he would confront them and, if necessary, bypass them.
The speech dealt mainly with the economy and job creation, and included only a little on foreign policy, given it is an election year.
But Obama milked one foreign policy success: the killing of Osama bin Laden last year, shamelessly tying himself to the Seal team responsible, saying one of his most treasured possessions is the flag they carried that day, signed by each of them.
In what is his last state of the union address before facing voters, he offered up policy proposals that included comprehensive immigration reform designed to win over crucial Latino voters; support for clean energy; cutting red tape on construction jobs, the farming industry and elsewhere; help for college students; and mortgage cuts for homeowners.
Addressing the hot button issue of Wall Street, he promised curbs, with the creation of a special unit to investigate the abusive mortgage lending that led to the housing market collapse. "I will not go back to the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules," he said.
Setting up the investigation is within his power but many other proposals are not going to happen without the support of Republicans in Congress. From Obama's point of view that does not matter: the point of the speech was to highlight the difference between him and the new generation of rightwing Republicans. His speech aimed to say "This is what America would look like if the Republicans were not so obstructive" – the theme on which he intends to fight the 2012 re-election campaign.
The president entered into the fray over the lower rate of tax paid by one of the Republican presidential nominees, Mitt Romney, one of the wealthiest people in America, an issue raised by one of his party opponents, Newt Gingrich.
Obama said: "Washington should stop subsidising millionaires. In fact, if you're earning a million dollars a year you shouldn't get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98% of American families, your taxes shouldn't go up."
Republicans have accused him of class warfare but he rejected the charge. "Now you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense," he said.
One of the most emotional points came before he spoke, when entering the room he embraced Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in January last year. Having missed the 2011 state of the union, she made a point of being present this year, in one of her last public acts before retiring later this week to concentrate on her recovery.
Obama received more than a score of standing ovations during the speech, though most Republicans did not join in, with senior figures such as John McCain stern-faced and remaining in their seats.
The Republican chosen to make the response, the Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, accused Obama of sowing discord with his message of a wealthy elite and a working class barely getting by. "No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favour with some Americans by castigating others," Daniels said.
Obama, whose approval ratings have improved marginally this month after being in the dangerously low 40s, is to take the state of the union message on the road on Wednesday, with a trip through the swing states that will determine on Tuesday 6 November whether he will go down in history as a one-term president or is given another four years.
In spite of White House insistence that this is not a campaign trip but an official one, he will take in Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan, all toss-up states.
In his speech he set out an agenda not only for the remainder of the year but for a second term. "Think about the America within our reach: a country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of hi-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we're in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren't so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded," he will say.
Obama, in a direct warning to the senators and members of the House sitting in front of him, said: "As long as I'm president I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place."
In words that could have been written by the Occupy Wall Street movement, he will say: "Let's never forget: millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that do the same. It's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom."
He proposed a series of tax reforms and challenged Congress to pass them, promising he would sign them. These included an end to tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and using the money to help companies that bring jobs back to America and set up in deprived areas.
He urged Congress to help college students by stopping interest rates on student loans doubling in July.
Bypassing Congress, he said he will sign an executive order to clear away red tape slowing down construction projects, another source of job creation.
And for struggling homeowners, he is to send to Congress a plan helping them save about $3,000 a year on their mortgages.
On foreign policy, a president who has been at loggerheads with the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, over a Middle East peace process promised unflinching support for the state. With an election looming and in need of votes and funds from American Jews, some of whom have been unhappy over his approach to Israel, Obama referred to "our iron-clad, and I mean iron-clad, commitment to Israel's security".
On Iran he claimed to have united much of the world behind the US approach, with crippling sanctions designed to dissuade Tehran from achieving a nuclear weapons capability.
He repeated the long-held US line that while he was pursuing diplomacy, a military strike remained on the table. "America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal," he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/25/state-of-the-union-obama-fairer
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