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¶ … Union address is explicitly mandated in the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 3: among the President's enumerated duties, it is required that "he shall from time to time give to Congress information of the Sate of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."
The applause and reaction during the 2014 State of the Union address was frequently, but not always, partisan. Obviously certain issues appeal to both parties: Obama received bipartisan standing ovations when he discussed issues on which neither party would dare seem less enthusiastic than its rival (economic competition with China, support for Israel, social mobility through hard work). Likewise, at the speech's conclusion, the overwhelming bipartisan standing ovation for the injured Army Ranger, Cory Remsburg, indicates both parties' desire to be seen supporting injured veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. However, on many political issues where the parties are polarized, the applause was quite obviously politicized: this was most noteworthy in the President's remarks on health care. No Republican could be spotted to stand or applaud for anything related to the Affordable Care Act. Ultimately these quick early mentions were included as part of a larger stated goal of "guaranteeing every child has access to a world-class education." (The phrase "world-class" suggested that Obama was pitching this in light of widely-publicized reports that America's ranking for educational skill and attainment has slipped badly among industrialized nations.) However, Obama mostly had hortatory inspirational rhetoric without many concrete proposals -- to the extent that there were proposals they were mostly couched in terms of how they would not increase government expenditure. He has encouraged "Race for the Top," which is a Federal initiative to encourage and provide incentive to individual states to improve educational performance: but a President can do nothing concrete about education on the state level apart from provide encouragement and incentives. He emphasized that early education was one of the "best investments" America could make, but did not urge Congress to consider any specific legislation: instead he mentioned pulling together a coalition including "business leaders" and "philanthropists" to discuss how early education could be expanded. And he brought up his plan to expand high speed and broadband access for schools -- presumably because education should serve the purpose of making students employable -- and emphasized that the partnership of industry and government had begun to implement this plan "without adding a dime to the deficit."
3. In terms of substantive issues that were addressed by President Obama in the 2014 State of the Union address, I would like to focus on three: education, minimum wage, and healthcare. This reflect the basic rough order in which the President addressed these issues in the course of the speech.
Obama made reference to education early: "teacher" was the fifth word of his speech, the first person mentioned in a Whitmanesque catalogue of American workers, while the first sentence of the speech noted that America has its highest graduation rate in "more than three decades." He returned soon to mention a recent College Opportunity Summit, convened to address how to increase access to
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Obama's remarks on the Minimum Wage seemed like they were intended to be the centerpiece of the speech. Obama managed to segue into discussion of the Minimum Wage from a discussion of wage inequality for women, which got a fairly impassioned response. But then Obama introduced a hipsterish pizza-store employee and a pizza store owner from Minneapolis, and discussed how the owner had given all his employees a raise, as a recognition of the financial hardship attendant on those with service-sector jobs in the present economy. Obama then vowed to "lead by example" by issuing an executive order that affects all federal contractors, in which they had to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. This was more than a proposal, it was an executive action that Obama is permitted to take: but the point was that he expected others -- specifically "every mayor, governor, and state legislator in America" -- to follow suit. His rhetorical refrain of "Give America a raise" -- which he seemed almost embarrassed about repeating -- looked like it was written in case Obama found himself (inexplicably) faced with an adoring crowd like the ones he met in 2008, such that he could repeat multiple times to waves…
4. Was Obama's speech a success? If we examine it in terms of concrete and substantive points, the speech is disappointing: there was very little in terms of actual proposals being offered, apart from the (largely symbolic) minimum wage increase for federal contractors. But this reflects the overall climate of Republican obstructionism that Obama faced throughout 2013. The actual state of the union in the past year has involved a government shutdown, total legislative gridlock, and polls demonstrating the massive unpopularity of Congress among all Americans. (An October 2013 poll claimed that Congress was less popular than cockroaches.) However, given the debased political conditions of 2013, we need to ask what success for Obama in this speech would even entail. Obama is not personally popular enough to turn the speech into a harangue against Congressional obstructionism: such a speech would look like an extension of the political polarization that is, indeed, the cause of much public disapproval. Instead, Obama used the speech to do the most sensible thing he could maange: he placed the issues solidly before Congress and ask them to deal with them, and he appealed to those outside Congress (mayors, governors, state legislators) to take action if Congress will not.
In terms of the three issues I have singled out -- education, minimum wage, and health care -- we can see the utter limitations placed on Obama without any congressional support. For education, Obama convenes summits and organizes partnerships to achieve very modest goals: he was hardly proposing free early education or free higher education for everybody (although both are standard in European democracies). For minimum wage, Obama can take executive action, but it affects a tiny sliver of America's actual minimum wage workforce -- it applies only to federal contractors. The President can do nothing to pizza store owners (and those like them) except encourage them to do the right thing: they cannot be compelled to raise the minimum wage without legislative action. And in terms of healthcare, Obama was facing a futile but unending congressional revolt: the 47 failed votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which Obama mentioned in the speech, have been as much of a media event with few substantial real-world consequences as Obama's State of the Union speech was.
5. Bizarrely the Republican Party offered four different responses: an official one by Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers and a Spanish-language version of the same speech by Rep. Ileanna Ros-Lehtinen, plus an "official Tea Party" response by Sen. Mike Lee, and a rather chilling presidential campaign launch posing as a response offered by Sen. Rand Paul. McMorris-Rodgers, and presumably the Spanish-language equivalent, were rather short on content. It was impossible for me to evaluate Ros-Lehtinen's Spanish-language version of McMorris-Rodgers's speech, but presumably it had the same vague ideological blather about free markets and replaced the autobiographical musings about working at a McDonald's drive-thru or giving birth to a baby with Downs Syndrome with different autobiographical
Even with that, considering present day conditions in the U.S. And across the world, it would be absurd to ignore the nation's defects. The fact that he did not put across any concern about changing matters regarding the War of Terror is however likely to bring on a series of critiques, with many Americans having lost their interest in supporting the conflict. Obama partly recovered for his involvement in the
Union Each year in January, the President of the United States typically gives a speech to the joint session of the United States Congress entitled "The State of the Union." The speech fulfills Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution, which requires that the President give congress an update on the measures necessary to continue governing and the overall "state of the union." In the 1800s and early 1900s, the
Bush's State Of The Union Address Critically analyzing U.S. President George W. Bush's State of the Union Address in 2003, it is evident that the rhetoric of fear dominates his speech. Using the rhetoric fear is the speaker's way of extending to the public that the issue being discussed at hand is not only of great importance to the Bush Administration, but to the whole nation of United States as well.
unseen terrorism and at the brink of a possible war with Iraq many Americans sat with baited breath waiting for the State of the Union Address from President Bush on January 28 of 2003. President Bush addressed several issues that were at least personally surprising to hear. The three domestic proposals that I found intriguing were the compassionate address of drug addiction treatment programs, hydrogen car research initiative and
To intimidate striking workers or escort strike breakers, workers who would replace the individuals striking, across picket lines some employers contracted private companies like the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The United States Department of Labor reports that the Coal Strike of 1902 proved to be a turning point in U.S. policy. On October 3, 1902, to address the strike in the Pennsylvania anthracite coal fields that he perceived to threaten a
Union Obama's 2013 State of the Union Address Finance President Obama made clear that the budget for the country was the first thing mentioned when discussing finance and economics. Obama suggested that the budget was directly tied to the strength of the nation. The president spoke about the deficit reduction of over $2.5 trillion over the last few years. Obama suggested that the goal for deficit reduction is $4 trillion and the country