Obama speech to focus on economy, guns
2013-02-12 16:36
Washington - President Barack Obama will be looking across
a vast partisan divide on Tuesday night as he reports to congress and the
nation with his annual State of the Union speech, which is closely monitored as
the blueprint for his goals for the year.
They include job creation and a push for the ambitious progressive
plans he outlined in his second inaugural address three weeks ago.
Obama hopes he can encourage lawmakers to join him in
reforming laws on gun ownership and immigration and boosting taxes to raise
government spending power.
The president's priorities also include easing back on
spending cuts and addressing climate change.
He'll also address the news from North Korea, which said
it successfully detonated a nuclear device on Tuesday in defiance of UN
warnings.
The White House said the president would make the case
that the nuclear programme had only further isolated the impoverished nation.
Aware of the partisan gridlock gripping Washington, Obama
is banking on his popularity and the political capital from his convincing
re-election in November as he calls on Americans to join him in his vision for
what he calls a fairer country with greater opportunity for all.
With Republicans in control of the House of
Representatives and exerting influence in the Democratic-controlled Senate,
Obama plans immediately afterward to make a two-day, three-state foray to take
his message directly to the American people.
Congress fought the president to a near standstill on
virtually every White House initiative during his first term - though he
succeeded in overhauling the health care system.
In his second term, Obama has decided that he may stand a
better chance of moving his agenda through congress by drawing support from
outside the capital rather than from within.
Massive federal spending cuts that will hit the US
economy on 1 March if a compromise isn't hammered out with Congress will surely
colour Obama's speech like nothing else.
Some economists predict those cuts could push the US back
into recession even before it has fully recovered from the Great Recession -
the most serious economic downturn in more than 70 years.
The cuts will slice deeply into spending for the Pentagon
and a range of social programmes.
Obama says he wants "a balanced approach" to
tackling the spiralling deficit with a mix of increased tax revenue and cuts in
spending.
The opposition declares it will not give ground on
raising taxes.
While the deep cuts, which grew out of a failure to reach
a deal in 2011, were conceived as a blow to the budget that is unacceptable to
both parties, some Republicans are threatening to let it go forward if Obama
does not agree to big cuts in the so-called social safety net programmes such
as Medicare and Medicaid, which provide health care and other assistance to the
elderly and poor, as well as Social Security retirement benefits.
Job creation
Obama also was expected to refocus on creating jobs in a
country where the unemployment rate remains at nearly 8%.
He failed to address the issue in any depth in his
inaugural address, leaving his political opponents an opening to criticise him
for ignoring an issue of over-riding importance.
Obama also is deeply invested in pushing for new laws
aimed at curbing gun violence.
Spurred by the mass shooting in December at a Connecticut
school that killed 20 children and six adults, Obama and like-minded Democrats
are pushing for tougher regulations requiring universal background checks for
gun buyers and bans on military-style assault weapons and high-volume
ammunition magazines.
He will no doubt return to the issue on Tuesday night in
the face of angry opposition from the National Rifle Association gun
rights lobbying group, many Republicans and even some moderate Democrats.
They say any change in gun laws would violate the
Constitution's Second Amendment guarantee of the right to bear arms.
To underscore the president's position, first lady
Michelle Obama will sit with the parents of a Chicago teenager shot and killed
just days after she performed at the president's inauguration. Twenty-two House
members have invited people affected by gun violence.
Gun control
On the other side of the issue, Republican Representative
Steve Stockman says he's invited rocker Ted Nugent, a long-time gun control
opponent who last year said he would end up "dead or in jail" if
Obama won re-election.
Another presidential priority - and possibly the most
likely to succeed in getting passed by congress- is granting illegal residents
a pathway to citizenship as part of an overhaul immigration reform.
The initiative is deeply unpopular in many House
Republicans' districts, but it has the support of some prominent Republican
lawmakers who understand that their party needs to soften its stance on
immigration if it is to win crucial Hispanic votes.
Obama will face continuing opposition to any proposal he
puts forward in an effort to curb climate change.
Given that any major climate bill is unlikely to pass the
divided congress, the White House has said Obama intends to move forward on
issuing rules to control carbon emissions from power plants as he relies
increasingly on his executive authority instead.
Senator Marco Rubio, a fast-rising Republican star, was
picked by the party's mainstream leadership to give its traditional response
immediately after Obama speaks. The first-term Cuban-American senator is seen
as a potential 2016 presidential candidate.
Senator Rand Paul of the Republicans' tea party wing, a
loose collection of lawmakers determined above all else to shrink government
and lower taxes, plans to give an unofficial response.
- AP
