State of the Union: wide ranging call for bipartisan action

by Rob Howard, Gayly Associate Editor

President Barack Obama delivered the first State of the Union address of his second term tonight, accompanied by all the pomp and circumstand that the event could muster. Republicans and Democratics sat together in the house chamber. Over 30 members of Congress gave their extra tickets to the event to people affected by gun violence.

The President quoted President Kennedy in saying "We are not rivals for power, but partners for progress," and we have much progresss to report.  He cited as progress the fact that our "brave men and women in uniform are coming home," and after years of grueling recession we have created 6 millioin new jobs, and are buying more American made cars than ever before. The housing market is healing, and the stock market recovering. He said "the state of our union is stronger."

But, he pointed out that there are millions of Americans whose hard work and dedication have not yielded jobs - that the tru engine of American growth is a rising middle class.

He noted that the 2011 "sequester" that led to drastic cuts in both military and civilian spending would jeopardize our military readiness, and damage education and job training. In response he called on the nation to embrace needs for modest reforms in our entitlement programs, including Medicare and Social Security, but that we cannot ask our senior citizens and working citizen to shoulder the entire burden.  Everyone must contribute their fair share, but "we can't cut our way to prosperity."

He wants to base Medicare reforms on the quality of care that seniors receive, rather than on the quanity of procedures or nights in hospital. The President said that we must "make promises that we can keep, and keep the promises that we have made."

In order to approach deficits, hecalled for bipartisan tax reform, while acknowledging that "tax reform and entitlement reform would not be easy," but that the alternative to reform would cost millions of jobs.  He called for replacing reckless cuts with smart solutions, noting that deficit reduction is not an economic plan. 

The President posed three questions:

How do we attract more jobs to our nation?

How do we equip our people to get those jobs? and

How do we ensure that hard work leads to a decent living. 

He called on action on climate change, noting that denying the overwhelming opinion of scientists wasn't smart, and that we need to "act before it is too late." He challenged Congress to act, saying that if they did not, he would act administratively to more in the direction we need to go. As an example, he said that we need to cut in half the enegry wasted by our homes and businesses in the next 20 years.

He urged a jobs program that he called the "fix it first program" to repair or replace 70,000 structurally deficient bridges in our country.

Citing Georgia and Oklahoma as models of universal pre-school education, he called on the nation to make high quality pre-school available to every child in America, saying that every dollar invested in early education can save us sesven dollars down the road.

Continuing on his education theme, he called for transforming the country's high schools to provide a high school diploma that would prepare our youth for the jobs that we will need to move the country forward.

Focusing on education and training, he said we need to ensure that "America remains a place where everyone willing to work has a chance to get ahead." Included in that theme was a call for comprehensive immigration reform, including not only addressing illegal immigration with stronger border security, reducing illegal crossing to a lower lever, but providing a responsible pathway to citizenship.  He also noted that we needed to fix the legal immigration system as well to make it quicker and more efficient.

Praising the Senate's passage today of the Violence Against Women Act, he call for Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act to ensure that women are paid the same as men for equal work.

Saying "no one who works full time should have to live in poverty," he called on a raise in the minimum wage to $9 per hour, and to tie increases in the minimum wage to the cost of living. 

The President turned to national security, noting the nuclear weapon test in North Korea this week, and vowed that we would "do what is necessary to prevent" Iran from getting nuclear weapons. He also cited the danger of cyber attacks and asked Congress to empower the nation to confront them. 

Saying "today's world presents not just threats but also opportunity," he called for eliminating extreme poverty over the next two decade, to save the world's children from preventable deaths, and to ensure and AIDS free eneration, noting "that is within our reach."

He discussed maintaining a strong military, and said we must provide "equal benefits for [military] families, gay and straight."

On the domestic front, he announced a non-partisan voting rights commission to ensure the right to vote to every citizen.

Noting the multiple gun violence incidents including Tucson, Aurora, Oak Creek WI, and Newtown, he said that those families deserve a vote in Congress to help reduce that violence. 

He close saying "We may do different jobs, and wear different uniforms, and hold different views than the person beside us. But as Americans, we all share the same proud title: We are citizens." He concluded by saying that "well into our third centruy as a nation, it remains the task of us all, as citizens of these United States, to be the authors of the next great chapter in our American story."