The president promised to make jobs his focus, but measures proposed seemed gimmicky, writes LARA MARLOWEin Washington
BARACK OBAMA made a valiant attempt to restore hope and enthusiasm for his year-old presidency in his first State of the Union address on Wednesday night. But although the Obama charisma and sense of humour were very much in evidence, the 70-minute address left one hungry for an overarching vision.
“Jobs must be our number one focus in 2010,” Obama said. He devoted more than a third of his address to the economy, and uttered the word “jobs” 29 times – more than any other. Yet the measures he proposed came across as gadgetry and gimmickry.
The three-year freeze on what amounts to one-sixth of the federal budget was intended to mollify critics of deficit spending. In his perennial eagerness to address all points of view, Obama acknowledged that “some in my own party will argue that we cannot address the deficit or freeze government spending when so many are hurting. I agree, which is why this freeze will not take effect until next year, when the economy is stronger.” Laughter erupted on Republican benches.
He promised tax breaks for childcare, a cap on repayment of student loans, tax breaks for small businesses who invest or hire; all laudable measures, but it didn’t add up to jobs for 18 million unemployed Americans.
Transferring $30 billion in taxes from the big Wall Street banks to local community banks so they will extend credit to needy businesses was a good idea too, but not enough to alter the equation substantially.
Obama admitted as much: “These steps won’t make up for the seven million jobs we’ve lost over the last two years.” His solution – more emphasis on financial reform, promoting US innovation and stepping up exports – sounded like pious wishes.
Obama reiterated arguments in favour of healthcare reform, mainly that it would “protect every American from the worst practices of the insurance industry”. He promised to return to the issue “as temperatures cool” but gave no indication how he would overcome Republican obstructionism.
Climate change was a prime example of Obama’s attempts to please everyone. His promise of “a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants” and “new offshore areas for oil and gas development” was calculated to please Republicans. At the same time, he defied “those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change” and promised to pursue a “clean energy economy”.
Obama seemed to have heeded critics on the left, including the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who have urged him to remind Americans of the mess left by George W Bush. “I took office amid two wars, an economy rocked by a severe recession, a financial system on the verge of collapse, and a government deeply in debt,” he said. He boasted of killing more al-Qaeda leaders than Bush, saying, “In the last year, hundreds of al-Qaeda’s fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed – far more than in 2008.”
Obama spent only nine minutes on foreign policy. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict featured prominently in his Cairo address last June, but he did not mention it on Wednesday night.
The president sought to distance himself from Wall Street and the Washington establishment, recognising the “deficit of trust – deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works”.
The address was meant to herald completion of healthcare reform, which is in limbo since the loss of Teddy Kennedy’s former seat to a Republican on January 19th. The disappointments of Obama’s first year in office are legion: cap-and-trade climate change legislation passed the House but not the Senate; financial regulation has not been completed; Guantánamo prison is still open. All have fallen victim to the fierce partisanship of US politics.
In what was perhaps the saddest, most sincere passage of the address, Obama summed up the lessons of his first year in office: “I campaigned on the promise of change,” he said. “I know there are many Americans who aren’t sure if they still believe we can change – or that I can deliver it. But remember this – I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I could do it alone. Democracy in a nation of 300 million people can be noisy and messy and complicated.”