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Previewing the State of the Union Address – January 20, 2015

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From the White House:

Click on this link to connect to the Enhanced State of the Union Address tonight at 9pm Eastern. Guaranteed to be pundit-free.

Watch Here



The president previews the State of the Union …

The First Lady will be sitting with Dr. Jill Biden and Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President. Her guests are people from all over the country including:

Anthony Mendez (Bronx, NY)

Student, “Reach Higher” Initiative

Growing up in the South Bronx with his mother and three siblings, Anthony Mendez names two experiences from his formative high school years. In ninth grade, his best friend was murdered in his neighborhood, and the next year his family was evicted from their home and moved into a homeless shelter. Living two hours away from school, for six months Anthony had to wake up at 4:30AM to continue his education. Overcoming these experiences, he became the first high school graduate in his family – his story of perseverance represents the core of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher initiative. In July he met the First Lady and fellow students who never took their education for granted, and he said he learned to be proud of his past and never hide from it. Today Anthony is a freshman at the University of Hartford — where he plans to study Political Science – on a partial track and field scholarship.

Follow the State of the Union on Twitter

Punditry below the fold …

The president has been previewing his State of the Union message over the past few weeks so there will be no surprises. And also not surprising is the reaction to his tax cut proposal. The right-wing is furious because it boxes them in and makes them come out against tax cuts for the middle class if it comes at the expense of their base … the have-mores.

Some commentary:

Matt O’Brien at WaPo: President Obama finally has his Piketty moment

The state of the union is pretty good, actually, but President Obama has an idea to make it better: taxing Wall Street and the super-rich to make middle-class work even more worthwhile. It’s Piketty with an American accent.

Okay, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but not a huge one. Obama’s State of the Union, you see, will call for $320 billion of new taxes on rentiers, their heirs, and the big banks to pay for $175 billion of tax credits that will reward work. In other words, it’s fighting a two-front war against a Piketty-style oligarchy where today’s hedge funders beget tomorrow’s trust funders. First, it’s trying to slow the seemingly endless accumulation of wealth among the top 1, and really the top 0.1, no actually the top 0.001, percent by raising capital gains taxes on them while they’re living and raising them on their heirs when they’re dead. And second, it’s trying to help the middle help itself by subsidizing work, child care, and education.

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John Nichols at The Nation: Obama’s Smart Economic (and Political) Calculus: Tax the Rich

Warren Buffett explained the secret to addressing a lot of the economic challenges facing the United States during President Obama’s first term. In a short commentary written for The New York Times-headline: “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich”-Buffett explained, “My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.”

President Obama was always cautious when it came to taking Buffett’s advice.

Too cautious.

But as Obama enters what he refers to as “the fourth quarter” of his presidency,  he has begun to embrace a proper, if still judicious, populism. […]

This is not a radical plan. It redistributes a very small amount of wealth, and most of that wealth will be steered right back into the economy by working families that-even as employment rates slowly improve-continue to struggle to make ends meet in an era of stagnant (or, at the very least, exceptionally slow) wage growth.

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Sally Kohn at CNN: GOP, support Obama on taxing the wealthy

According to a new study released by Oxfam, the rich have made tremendous gains in the past several years — to the point where, analysts predict, by 2016 the world’s wealthiest 1% will control more than 50% of the world’s wealth. The 80 wealthiest people in the world, alone, own $1.9 trillion.

In the United States, the top 1% control more than one third of the nation’s resources. Two out of three Americans disapprove of the current distribution of income and wealth. They believe that our economy and government unfairly favor the rich.

Republicans, meanwhile, are already apoplectic about President Obama’s plan. One of the more curious phenomena about Republicans is that their economic agenda is entirely independent of the facts of the moment. So when the economy is strong, Republicans demand tax cuts for the rich. When the economy is weak, Republicans demand tax cuts for the rich. When the economy is recovering, Republicans demand tax cuts for the rich. […]

While American voters across the board think that Democrats help the poor, middle class and rich fairly equally, 69% think Republican Party policies favor the rich. Even conservative voters are concerned about rising inequality.

The political pressure is on the GOP to prove they’re not just the party of the 1%.

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Booman at Booman Tribune: Not Repeating Clinton’s Mistakes

This is what I want the president to do, not because I think it is “serious” in the sense that it demonstrates that the president is interested in signing legislation, but because it indicates that he is serious about not passing a Republican agenda. If he can’t do what he’d like to do, he can at least block the Republicans from doing what they’d like to do.

It might seem like a small thing, but this is not what Clinton did when faced with a similarly hostile Congress in the last two years of his crippled presidency. Here’s what Clinton did. He signed the:

       Balanced Budget Act of 1997

       Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997

       Iraq Liberation Act

       Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act

       Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act

       Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000

You might want to familiarize yourself with this list of legislation because it all combined to set the stage for the war in Iraq and the Great Recession. That’s what being “serious” about working with a Republican Congress looked like, and history doesn’t look kindly on the results.

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The Polls: GOP split over taxing the wealthy, poll funds

When asked whether they support raising the tax rate on personal income above $1 million annually, 36 percent of Republicans supported the plan and 47 percent of Republicans were opposed. The rest were undecided.

But when asked whether they supported raising the personal income tax on those earning $1 million a year to 50 percent, “the same rate taxed under President Reagan,” Republicans shifted their support, with 53 percent supporting and 33 opposing.

Overall, 54 percent of those polled support raising the tax rate on millionaires, 31 percent are opposed and 12 percent were neutral or undecided. Democrats supported the idea by a 72 percent to 16 percent margin, with the remainder undecided or neutral.


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 8 Comments

8 comments

  2. JanF

    Friend —

    Tonight, the President will lay out his priorities for the year ahead — outlining policies to strengthen the middle class and make sure our recovering economy is working for all Americans.

    ​But he’s not the only one who’s been laying out an agenda for the country. The new Congress has been in session for just two weeks, and in that time, Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell have been busy:

    — Rolling​ back the President’s actions to reform our broken immigration system, which would strip deportation protections away from 610,000 DREAMers.

    — Dismantling a key piece of the Affordable Care Act, potentially leaving half a million Americans uninsured.

    — Weakening key consumer protections passed into law in Wall Street reform — which would once again put our economy at risk.

    — Introducing five bills in three days that attack a woman’s right to make her own medical decisions​, restrict access to care, and defund Planned Parenthood.

    That’s why tonight is so important. It’s a chance for the nation to see an alternative to an agenda that wants to tear down the progress we’ve made.

    If you were there in person tonight, you’d have the opportunity to stand and applaud to show support at key moments. While we may not be members of Congress, OFA supporters will be standing up in living rooms across the country — for ideas that will make Americans’ lives better.

    ​If you think that’s something worth fighting for, we could use your help — take a stand right now to support an agenda that moves our country forward.

    In the last few weeks, the President’s already announced some proposals that do just that — big things like free community college for those willing to work hard, strong cuts to dangerous methane emissions that contribute to climate change, and expanded access to paid sick leave for millions of Americans.

    That’s real progress. But this year isn’t going to be easy, that’s for sure.

    Here’s just one example: M​ore than 25 percent of Congress denies the basic science behind climate change. That means one in four members of Congress simply don’t believe there’s a problem to solve — and most are actively looking for ways to prevent the President from taking action.

    ​We’re up against a lot when it comes to making meaningful progress — and that’s why it’s never been more important to take a stand.

    Tonight, we’ll get to hear a little more about President Obama’s plan. I hope you’re ready to fight — let’s go:

    http://my.barackobama.com/Tonights-State-of-the-Union

    Thanks,

    Abby

    Abby Witt

    Managing Director

    Organizing for Action

    P.S. — The White House has put together an amazing, interactive resource you can use to follow along with the President’s speech at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time tonight. Check it out:

    http://my.barackobama.com/State-of-the-Union-Resource

  3. JanF

    GOP’s Big Spanish SOTU Response Will Be a Translation of English-Only Advocate Joni Ernst’s Speech

    The GOP has also announced it will be offering a Spanish-language rebuttal, which will be delivered tonight by freshman Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a young conservative from a diverse Miami congressional district. But there’s a wrinkle. According to a press release from the House Republicans, Curbelo will not be sharing his own thoughts and words with the public. Instead, he will only be reading a Spanish translation of Ernst’s speech.

    Okay fine … reading Joni Ernst’s remarks in Spanish … nice gesture.

    But wait! What’s this????

    Ernst has endorsed English as a national language and once sued Iowa’s secretary of state for offering voting forms in languages other than English.

    Awkwaaaard!!

  4. janicket

    Obama — wonderful speech, so many wonderful parts I’m still trying to absorb it all.

    The GOP response?  Just posted this at Booman’s:


    Yikes.

    I keep dipping into what’s-her-name’s reply speech and fleeing after a minute or two — she’s GODAWFUL!  Even if she were a Democrat I agreed with, I couldn’t stand to watch and listen to her.  That fixed rictus of a “smile”, alternating with her Serious Face; the slow sing-song delivery, obviously so carefully coached till all the life was bled out of it — this is charismatic?

    She’d be awful on her own (lack of) merits, but following that helluva speech by Obama?  It’s sending a tetherball player up to bat after Babe Ruth.

    I have no idea what sort of glurge she actually produced; I couldn’t stick around long enough, couldn’t get past the surface repulsiveness, to take it in.

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