State of the Union 2012
Live coverage of President Obama's State of the Union address
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President Barack Obama will pitch new initiatives on jobs, taxes and housing in an election-year State of the Union address on Tuesday, making a sweeping case for a second term despite the slow U.S. economic recovery and high jobless rate. Full Article -
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The Huffington Post: President Barack Obama will cast 2012 as "a make or break moment" for the middle class and those trying to reach it in Tuesday night's State of the Union address, according to talking points being circulated by the White House and obtained by The Huffington Post. Full Article
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The Huffington Post: A look back at past speeches
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The Daily Beast: The president needs to go on the offensive with Republicans and convince members of the middle class that he’s on their side, says Michael Tomasky. Full Article
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The New York Times: Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, who will give the G.O.P. response to the State of the Union address on Tuesday, is sure to raise wistful “if onlys” in the Republican establishment. Full Article
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The Huffington Post: State Of The Union Guest List: Michelle Obama Continues A 30-Year Tradition Of Extraordinary Americans Full Article
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Six hours to go. Look for Economic Fairness to be a prominent theme in Obama's speech. Central to that will be a call for reforming the U.S. tax system, which allows the world's third richest man Warren Buffett to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary. -
Washington Post: State of the Union 2012 address should have bipartisan tone, Hoyer says Full Article
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Debbie Bosanek, Buffett's secretary, will sit next to Michelle Obama in the US House chamber as the poster child for tax fairness. For decades presidents have invited someone considered an American hero to sit with the White House family during the State of the Union address to put the national spotlight on an initiative or cause pressed in the address.
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How well has Obama delivered on his promises to boost jobs and rebuild the economy? Here's a checklist
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The full list of those invited to join the First Lady tonight gives you a sense of the priorities and achievements Obama wishes to emphasize. American innovation and resiliency shine through. The New York Times reports there will be the mayor of San Antonio, who has begun negotiations to build the nation's largest solar energy project; the wife of Apple founder Steve Jobs; a Brazilian national who has co-founded today's fastest growing social mobile startup in the U.S. and is seeking a green card to stay; and an Air Force colonel, a lesbian, who is deploying to Afghanistan and whose partner of a decade is recognised now homosexuality is no longer prohibited in the military.
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Gene Sperling, of the National Economic Council, tells CNBC that Obama will lay out a blueprint for strengthening American jobs and encouraging U.S. manufacturers to locate at home rather than offshore. Education to provide American companies with the skilled workforce they need will be part of the proposal, he says.
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On housing initiatives, Sperling was less specific on CNBC, suggesting there may be no Big Bang proposal tonight. He said housing will be addressed but over the next few weeks there will be more details on steps that can be taken by administratively and legislatively.
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As for tax reform, Gene Sperling said that Obama will talk about the Buffett Rule, which would set a minimum tax for those earning $1 million or more. Romney would face a very different tax bill, were that to pass. His tax returns released today showed that he earned $42.6 million in 2010 and 2011, mostly in interest, dividends and capital gains, and that his tax rate was 13.9 pct and 15.4 pct respectively -- less than Warren Buffett's secretary.
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The Huffington Post: President Obama lunched with news anchors on Tuesday to preview his State of the Union speech. But curious minds want to know what was on the menu... Full Article
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News breaking from the White House on key messages in the Obama's speech -- Reuters reports:
--OBAMA TO SAY WEALTHY MUST DO THEIR SHARE FOR ECONOMY, PLEDGE 'NO BAILOUTS, NO HANDOUTS, NO COPOUTS' IN STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH-OFFICIAL EXCERPTS
--OBAMA TO STRESS NEED FOR MORE U.S. ENERGY PRODUCTION AND INVESTMENT IN MANUFACTURING AS A JOBS ENGINE IN STATE OF THE UNION-SPEECH EXCERPTS -
Obama is vulnerable on investment in alternative energy projects after Solyandra was lauded as a model company, got a $500 million government-backed loan and then went bankrupt last year. Still given his line-up of guests, Obama looks set to promote the role of government in championing new technologies and supporting emerging industries.
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Fixing the housing market will be part of the speech, but there are no quick fixes. Barclays Capital estimates that 1.9 million homes are going through the foreclosure process, and banks own 440,000 homes. In addition, mortgages on an estimated one million homes exceed the property value.
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Here's the latest Reuters story: Obama to focus on tax inequality in State of the Union speech
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For all the buzz around Newt Gingrich, Obama`s reelection team still seems to be acting on the assumption that Mitt Romney will be the candidate the president will face in the general election. And, in what will surely be complemented by his speech tonight, Democrats are focusing on the former governor`s effective tax rate, which is lower than many top wage-earners -- and, as Stella points out, also lower than Warren Buffett`s secretary, who, it just so happens, will attend the speech as a guest of the White House.
In a press call earlier this afternoon, DNC Executive Director Patrick Gaspard said Romney had not yet "released sufficient information for Americans to be able to evaluate his investments and whether he has any financial conflicts that could cloud his judgment.” An accompanying DNC press release included a series of bullet points intended to demonstrate that "Romney is against Americans paying their fair share." Among them:
-- Romney says that he's paying every cent legally owed to the U.S. Treasury, and not one cent more. The problem is that, unlike the American people, Romney doesn’t believe we all have a responsibility to do our fair share, and as president he would protect the loopholes, special deductions and other gimmicks that wealthy Americans use to pay a lower tax rate than middle class Americans.
--He opposes the Buffett Rule to make sure that millionaires and billionaires do not pay lower tax rates than the middle class does. Now we know why -- Mitt Romney pays a lower tax rate than most police and firefighters, teachers and small business owners, and he doesn't want that to change.
--According to a recent analysis by the Citizens for Tax Justice, his tax plan would cut his 2013 taxes by nearly half. -
From our blog blogs.reuters.com
Twenty-three percent said that jobs were the most important topic the president could talk about in his speech, while another 20 percent said the economy was the most important. Fourteen percent of respondents said government spending should be addressed, according to the poll.
The polls showed that though U.S. voters will watch the president’s speech carefully, they are skeptical of his ability to present and enact new solutions.
According to the Public Notice survey, 52 percent said Obama was likely to propose the same type of proposals as he has in the past. In the USA TODAY/Gallup poll, almost 70 percent predicted that few or none of his proposals could become law.... -
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I am surprised that the survey Lily cites has relatively low numbers for people who say jobs and the economy are important, especially given those are major themes Obama is stressing in his reelection campaign. Are people growing inured to the hardship or have they plain given up? The U.S. unemployment rate remains uncomfortably high though it has improved from a year ago. It stands at 8.5 percent, down from 9.7 percent in January 2011. Economic growth is a little bit better than this time last year. Macroeconomic Advisers estimates the economy was expanding at a 3 pct rate in the final quarter of last year, compared with 2.3 pct in Q4 2010. But most analysts think growth will slow somewhat in early 2012. In early 2011, growth stuttered and came in a to 0.4 pct.
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Ezra Klein points out that according to Gallup, which in 2010 looked back at polling numbers for the past five presidents, Obama's approval rating is unlikely to get much of a post-SOTU boost:
"Jimmy Carter's average bump was...negative one percent. Perhaps surprisingly, Ronald Reagan did no better. Nor did George W. Bush. George H.W. Bush, however, did worse -- he tended to lose four points in the polls when he delivered a State of the Union address. The only recent president who consistently benefited from the speech was Bill Clinton, who gained, on average, three points." -
list of who's sitting with the First Lady. As well as Warren Buffett's secretary, the list includes the co-founder of Instagram www.whitehouse.gov
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@Lily -- I didn't realize Mike Krieger was Brazilian. A great example of the type of person the U.S. government should "staple a green card to the diploma of," as Mitt Romney put it at a debate last fall (in the words of venture capitalist John Doerr and probably others). According to Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs encouraged Obama to do the same, stressing to him at a dinner last year "the need for more trained engineers" and suggesting "that any foreign students who earned an engineering degree in the U.S. should be given a visa to stay in the country."
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Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, gives the Republican rebuttal to the president's speech. His name has cropped up the past 10 days in Washington as a backroom pick for the Republican nomination, should the Romney-Gingrich-Santorum-Paul brawl end with none having a clear majority.
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Excerpts from Governor Mitch Daniels’ Republican Address to the Nation www.speaker.gov
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President Obama just sent this email to supporters:
Subject: Before I speak tonight
Friend --
I'm heading to Capitol Hill soon to deliver my third State of the Union address.
Before I go, I want to say thanks for everything you're doing.
Tonight, we set the tone for the year ahead. I'm going to lay out in concrete terms the path we need to take as a country if we want an economy that works for everyone and rewards hard work and responsibility.
I'm glad to know you'll be standing with me up there.
Barack -
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Obama to refocus on the "Buffett rule" in SOTU, check out the basics of the proposal from our tax reporter www.reuters.com
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Among those expected to be in attendance this evening are the justices of the Supreme Court. Don't expect Justice Scalia though - he hasn't attended an address since 1997. www.nytimes.com
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Excerpt from the speech as released by the White House Press office: "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, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules."
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State of the Union excerpt as released by the WH Press Office: "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. "
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