Embattled President uses State of the Union speech to affirm his commitment to health-care reform and climate-change legislation
Barack Obama, unbowed by a flurry of recent setbacks, is vowing to press on with a jam-packed liberal agenda that includes health-care reform, climate-change legislation, investments in research, education and green energy, and a new deal for gays in the military.
Going into the speech, the newly embattled President faced expectations almost as Himalayan as those he confronted on taking office a year ago. But Mr. Obama appeared undaunted by the impossible odds of meeting them.
Despite the popular unrest sweeping the country, Mr. Obama was determined last night to push ahead with both of his signature initiatives on health care and climate change and assumed only tangential blame for his administration's patchy first-year performance.
“From the day I took office, I have been told that addressing our larger challenges is too ambitious,” the President said. “For those who make these claims, I have one simple question: How long should we wait? How long should America put its future on hold?”
Going into the speech, the newly embattled President faced expectations almost as Himalayan as those he confronted on taking office a year ago. But Mr. Obama appeared undaunted by the impossible odds of meeting them.
Despite the popular unrest sweeping the country, Mr. Obama was determined last night to push ahead with both of his signature initiatives on health care and climate change and assumed only tangential blame for his administration's patchy first-year performance.
“From the day I took office, I have been told that addressing our larger challenges is too ambitious,” the President said. “For those who make these claims, I have one simple question: How long should we wait? How long should America put its future on hold?”
In a dense 7,112-word State of the Union speech last night, Mr. Obama did strive to overcome impressions he has given short shrift to near-term economic redress, vowing to make employment “our number one focus in 2010” and laying down the gauntlet to an unco-operative Congress: “I want a jobs bill on my desk without delay.”
But instead of “rebooting” his stalled presidency as many expected him to attempt to do in his first SOTU, as the annual address to Congress is known in Washington, Mr. Obama chose to strike a combative tone and stick with the agenda he campaigned on in 2008.
The real problem, Mr. Obama countered, is an obstructionist Congress and its unseemly tactics, which have left Americans disgusted with their government. He called on legislators to rebuild Americans' confidence in their institutions and tackle the “big and difficult challenges” that have left the country mired in deficits, debt and unemployment.
“We face a deficit of trust – deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years,” the President argued. “To close that credibility gap we must take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; and to give our people the government they deserve.”
Dante Scala, a presidential scholar at the University of New Hampshire, gave Mr. Obama high marks for the address. “One speech won't transform everything, but Obama sounds like a vigorous, confident executive,” Prof. Scala opined. “He'll need to show more of this in the weeks and months ahead if the Democrats are to avoid crushing losses and retain their majority” after this fall's midterm elections.
Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta, called the address “a good speech, well delivered, focusing on the biggest concerns of the American people, especially jobs. I think this will give him at least a short-term boost in public support.”
In theory, Mr. Obama did not need to sound as contrite as Bill Clinton did in his 1995 State of the Union speech, which came only weeks after the Democrats took a drubbing in midterm elections, losing 54 seats in the House of Representatives and eight in the Senate.
“I have learned again the importance of humility in all human endeavour,” Mr. Clinton conceded then, all but admitting he had misinterpreted the mandate Americans had handed him in 1992 by pressing ahead with controversial measures, including health-care reform.
Mr. Obama not only won more convincingly in 2008 than Mr. Clinton did in 1992, the new President's electoral reversals to date – in two governors' races and the special vote to fill the late Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat – have been surface wounds compared to the near decapitation Democrats experienced in 1994.
Yet, many Americans disappointed by Mr. Obama's first year in office are bound to be just as disheartened by the President's speech, which was heavy on blame for Congress and the lobbyists who lurk in its hallways.
“I found it striking how often he directly challenged the Senate. I don't think there is much precedent for that,” observed Russell Riley, a presidential scholar at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs.
Critics point out that Mr. Obama resorted to the very tactics Americans despise the most about politics to advance his health-care package through Congress. The backroom deal-making – with drug companies, insurers, unions and obstreperous Senators – smacked, to them, of Washington at its worst. It's far from clear Americans will trust him now as he tries to salvage what he can of his health-care package.
Mr. Obama's promise last night to simply “ask” Congress to let gays and lesbians serve openly in the military will sound emptier to the Democratic base than it did on the campaign trail. How hard will he fight for the repeal of the current “don't ask, don't tell” policy when his own Democratic caucus is full of conservatives worried about their re-election this fall?
The jobs measures promised in the speech, meanwhile, are mere embellishments on last year's $787-billion stimulus package. They may help stabilize the job market; they won't heal it.
The Congressional Budget Office, the spending watchdog that served as the model for Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer, predicted this week that the U.S. unemployment rate will remain at around 10 per cent through 2010 and hover close to 9 per cent toward the end of Mr. Obama's first term in 2012. “More of the pain of unemployment from this downturn lies ahead of us than behind us,” CBO chief Douglas Elmendorf declared.
The President appears similarly hamstrung in his attempt to tackle the $12-trillion – on its way to $20-trillion – national debt. He vowed last night to use his executive power to create a bipartisan commission that would identify ways to slash the debt, after the Senate voted down a similar proposal on Tuesday.
But the President sowed doubt about his resolve with a three-year freeze on discretionary spending that exempts the very budget items that are responsible for the projected doubling of U.S. debt (as a percentage of gross domestic product) by 2020: public-health costs for seniors and the poor, defence spending and retirement benefits for Americans over 65.
Unlike Mr. Clinton, who declared in his 1996 State of the Union speech that “the era of big government is over,” Mr. Obama seems resigned to presiding over the biggest American government ever.
Then again, Mr. Obama can't take the axe to any of it without a compliant Congress. And if the Republicans and conservative Democrats won't let him chop the military budget, liberal Democrats can't countenance cuts to social spending. Mr. Clinton had an easier time of it not in spite of Republican control in Congress, but because of it. With deeply divided Democratic majorities in both chambers, Mr. Obama is in a vise.
But instead of “rebooting” his stalled presidency as many expected him to attempt to do in his first SOTU, as the annual address to Congress is known in Washington, Mr. Obama chose to strike a combative tone and stick with the agenda he campaigned on in 2008.
The real problem, Mr. Obama countered, is an obstructionist Congress and its unseemly tactics, which have left Americans disgusted with their government. He called on legislators to rebuild Americans' confidence in their institutions and tackle the “big and difficult challenges” that have left the country mired in deficits, debt and unemployment.
“We face a deficit of trust – deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years,” the President argued. “To close that credibility gap we must take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; and to give our people the government they deserve.”
Dante Scala, a presidential scholar at the University of New Hampshire, gave Mr. Obama high marks for the address. “One speech won't transform everything, but Obama sounds like a vigorous, confident executive,” Prof. Scala opined. “He'll need to show more of this in the weeks and months ahead if the Democrats are to avoid crushing losses and retain their majority” after this fall's midterm elections.
Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta, called the address “a good speech, well delivered, focusing on the biggest concerns of the American people, especially jobs. I think this will give him at least a short-term boost in public support.”
In theory, Mr. Obama did not need to sound as contrite as Bill Clinton did in his 1995 State of the Union speech, which came only weeks after the Democrats took a drubbing in midterm elections, losing 54 seats in the House of Representatives and eight in the Senate.
“I have learned again the importance of humility in all human endeavour,” Mr. Clinton conceded then, all but admitting he had misinterpreted the mandate Americans had handed him in 1992 by pressing ahead with controversial measures, including health-care reform.
Mr. Obama not only won more convincingly in 2008 than Mr. Clinton did in 1992, the new President's electoral reversals to date – in two governors' races and the special vote to fill the late Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat – have been surface wounds compared to the near decapitation Democrats experienced in 1994.
Yet, many Americans disappointed by Mr. Obama's first year in office are bound to be just as disheartened by the President's speech, which was heavy on blame for Congress and the lobbyists who lurk in its hallways.
“I found it striking how often he directly challenged the Senate. I don't think there is much precedent for that,” observed Russell Riley, a presidential scholar at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs.
Critics point out that Mr. Obama resorted to the very tactics Americans despise the most about politics to advance his health-care package through Congress. The backroom deal-making – with drug companies, insurers, unions and obstreperous Senators – smacked, to them, of Washington at its worst. It's far from clear Americans will trust him now as he tries to salvage what he can of his health-care package.
Mr. Obama's promise last night to simply “ask” Congress to let gays and lesbians serve openly in the military will sound emptier to the Democratic base than it did on the campaign trail. How hard will he fight for the repeal of the current “don't ask, don't tell” policy when his own Democratic caucus is full of conservatives worried about their re-election this fall?
The jobs measures promised in the speech, meanwhile, are mere embellishments on last year's $787-billion stimulus package. They may help stabilize the job market; they won't heal it.
The Congressional Budget Office, the spending watchdog that served as the model for Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer, predicted this week that the U.S. unemployment rate will remain at around 10 per cent through 2010 and hover close to 9 per cent toward the end of Mr. Obama's first term in 2012. “More of the pain of unemployment from this downturn lies ahead of us than behind us,” CBO chief Douglas Elmendorf declared.
The President appears similarly hamstrung in his attempt to tackle the $12-trillion – on its way to $20-trillion – national debt. He vowed last night to use his executive power to create a bipartisan commission that would identify ways to slash the debt, after the Senate voted down a similar proposal on Tuesday.
But the President sowed doubt about his resolve with a three-year freeze on discretionary spending that exempts the very budget items that are responsible for the projected doubling of U.S. debt (as a percentage of gross domestic product) by 2020: public-health costs for seniors and the poor, defence spending and retirement benefits for Americans over 65.
Unlike Mr. Clinton, who declared in his 1996 State of the Union speech that “the era of big government is over,” Mr. Obama seems resigned to presiding over the biggest American government ever.
Then again, Mr. Obama can't take the axe to any of it without a compliant Congress. And if the Republicans and conservative Democrats won't let him chop the military budget, liberal Democrats can't countenance cuts to social spending. Mr. Clinton had an easier time of it not in spite of Republican control in Congress, but because of it. With deeply divided Democratic majorities in both chambers, Mr. Obama is in a vise.
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