On January 20th, 2015, President Barack Obama gave the annual State of the Union Address to the nation. Over the course of the speech, President Obama spent a total of 25 minutes discussing the economy, 10 minutes on foreign policy, 3 on education, 2 on climate change, and 1 on race.
Historically, the State of the Union address has been an opportunity for the president to report to a joint session of Congress and the American public at large on the current status of the Union and the future challenges the country faces. Obama’s major focus during the speech was the current condition of the economy.
President Obama outlined several recent successes regarding the recovery of the economy. During the speech, President Obama stated that the unemployment rate has dropped to the lowest it has been in years. He also said that the significant lowered gas prices have saved families across the country an average of $750 this past year. President Obama also said that the recovering economy brought businesses back to America and those businesses subsequently created over 11 million new jobs.
He also addressed the economic recession and housing collapse of the late 2000’s by sharing the story of one family in particular. The government has implemented regulations to help prevent another economic crisis.
President Obama said, “Today, we have new tools to stop taxpayer-funded bailouts, and a new consumer watchdog to protect us from predatory lending and abusive credit card practices. And in the past year alone, about ten million uninsured Americans finally gained the security of health coverage.”
The president also stated, “At every step, we were told our goals were misguided or too ambitious; that we would crush jobs and explode deficits. Instead, we’ve seen the fastest economic growth in over a decade, our deficits cut by two-thirds, and a stock market that has doubled.”
Also outlined was what he wanted to do in the last two years of his presidency. He focused on affordable child care for middle-class and lower income families. He also want to help states create their own laws regarding paid sick leave or maternity leave and have Congress pass a law ensuring equal pay for women performing the same job as men.
Congress was called on to raise the federal minimum wage and have the government sponsor free community college. While he does not feel that the intention is to relieve every hardship, he believes that these changes will ease some of the burdens from American families.
President Obama has a difficult road ahead of him in the last two years of his presidency. Due to the fact that the Senate and House of Representatives are both controlled by Republicans and because Obama promised to veto almost any Republican sponsored bill, it will be interesting to see if anything gets accomplished within the next two years.