Obama to Republicans: Game on

AP photo

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama deliv­ers his State of the Union address on Capi­tol Hill in Wash­ing­ton, Tues­day, Jan. 24, 2012, as Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner, right, lis­ten. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pres­i­dent Barack Obama deliv­ered an election-year broad­side to Repub­li­cans: Game on.

The GOP, from Con­gress to the cam­paign trail, sig­naled it’s ready for the fight.

In his third State of the Union address, Obama issued a pop­ulist call for income equal­ity that echoed the Occupy Wall Street move­ment. He chal­lenged GOP law­mak­ers to work with him or move aside so he could use the power of the pres­i­dency to pro­duce results for an elec­torate uncer­tain whether he deserves another term.

Fac­ing a deeply divided Con­gress, Obama appealed for law­mak­ers to send him leg­is­la­tion on immi­gra­tion, clean energy and hous­ing, know­ing full well the election-year prospects are bleak but aware that polls show that the inde­pen­dent vot­ers who lifted him to the pres­i­dency crave bipartisanship.

“I intend to fight obstruc­tion with action,” Obama told a packed cham­ber and tens of mil­lions of Amer­i­cans watch­ing in prime time. House Repub­li­cans greeted his words with stony silence.

The Demo­c­ra­tic president’s vision of an activist gov­ern­ment broke sharply with Repub­li­can demands for less gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion to allow free enter­prise. The stark dif­fer­ences will be evi­dent in the White House’s deal­ings with Con­gress and in the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign over the next 10 months.

In the Repub­li­can response to the president’s address, Indi­ana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who once con­sid­ered a White House bid, railed against the “extrem­ism” of an admin­is­tra­tion that sti­fles eco­nomic growth.

“No fea­ture of the Obama pres­i­dency has been sad­der than its con­stant effort to divide us, to curry favor with some Amer­i­cans by cas­ti­gat­ing oth­ers,” Daniels said, speak­ing from Indi­anapo­lis. “As in pre­vi­ous moments of national dan­ger, we Amer­i­cans are all in the same boat.”

Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden said Wednes­day the pro­tracted pol­icy fight with Repub­li­cans is “not about bad guys and good guys,” but cen­ters on how best to keep the mid­dle class grow­ing in America.

The admin­is­tra­tion has worked hard to strike deals with con­gres­sional Repub­li­cans on a wide array of issues, he said, includ­ing steps to rein in the mount­ing fed­eral deficit. But Biden added that time after time in talks he held with con­gres­sional fig­ures in both par­ties, he was told lit­tle could be accom­plished because of the wall of oppo­si­tion from 86 con­ser­v­a­tive House Republicans.

“It’s like the tail is wag­ging the dog,” the vice pres­i­dent said.

House Major­ity Leader Eric Can­tor, R-Va., called the dif­fer­ences between the par­ties “stark” and said he thought lit­tle could be accom­plished on the fed­eral debt until the two sides come to grips with the sky­rock­et­ing costs of health care and the Medicare program.

“I don’t think any­one wants to pay higher taxes,” Can­tor said. And he said Wash­ing­ton needs to “get out of the mind­set” that the country’s prob­lems can be solved with new pro­grams and accept that small busi­ness “is the back­bone” of the economy.

In his speech, Obama said get­ting a fair shot for all Amer­i­cans is “the defin­ing issue of our time.” He described an econ­omy on the rebound from the worst eco­nomic cri­sis since the Great Depres­sion, with more than 3 mil­lion jobs cre­ated in the last 22 months and U.S. man­u­fac­tur­ers hir­ing. Although unem­ploy­ment is high at 8.5 per­cent, home sales and cor­po­rate earn­ings have increased, among other pos­i­tive eco­nomic signs.

Repub­li­cans say the president’s poli­cies have under­mined the economy.

Obama “had the oppor­tu­nity and the respon­si­bil­ity to level with the Amer­i­can peo­ple, admit that the poli­cies of the past three years have deliv­ered an under­whelm­ing record of eco­nomic growth and job cre­ation, and show an inter­est in chang­ing direc­tion and unit­ing, not divid­ing the nation,” said Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., head of the Repub­li­can Pol­icy Com­mit­tee. “The pres­i­dent failed to meet that responsibility.”

There were brief moments of bipar­ti­san­ship. Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats sat together, con­tin­u­ing a prac­tice begun last year. The arrival of Rep. Gabrielle Gif­fords, who sur­vived an assas­si­na­tion attempt, elicited sus­tained applause and cheer­ing, with chants of “Gabby, Gabby.” Repub­li­can Rep. Jeff Flake escorted her into the cham­ber and Obama greeted her with a hug.

The pres­i­dent received loud applause from both sides when he said: “I’m a Demo­c­rat. But I believe what Repub­li­can Abra­ham Lin­coln believed: That gov­ern­ment should do for peo­ple only what they can­not do bet­ter by them­selves, and no more.”

But all that belied a fierce divide.

Obama ticked off items on a hefty agenda that he wants from Con­gress — a path to cit­i­zen­ship for chil­dren who come to the United States with their undoc­u­mented par­ents if they com­plete col­lege, tax cred­its for clean energy, elim­i­na­tion of red tape for Amer­i­cans refi­nanc­ing their mort­gages, a mea­sure that bans insider trad­ing by law­mak­ers and a pay­roll tax cut.

Polit­i­cal real­ity sug­gests it was largely wish­ful think­ing on Obama’s part. The pay­roll tax cut and must-do spend­ing bill are the most likely leg­isla­tive items to sur­vive the elec­tion year.

But Obama’s far-reaching list and the hour-plus speech offered a unique oppor­tu­nity to con­trast his record with con­gres­sional Repub­li­cans and his top pres­i­den­tial rivals, Mitt Rom­ney and Newt Gingrich.

“Any­one who tells you Amer­ica is in decline or that our influ­ence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talk­ing about,” Obama said — a clear response to the White House hope­fuls who have pum­meled him for months.

In an attack on the nation’s grow­ing income gap, Obama called for a new min­i­mum tax rate of at least 30 per­cent on any­one mak­ing more than $1 mil­lion. Many mil­lion­aires — includ­ing Rom­ney — pay a rate less than that because they get most of their income from invest­ments, which are taxed at a lower rate.

“Now you can call this class war­fare all you want,” Obama said. “But ask­ing a bil­lion­aire to pay at least as much as his sec­re­tary in taxes? Most Amer­i­cans would call that com­mon sense.”

Obama calls this the “Buf­fett rule,” named for bil­lion­aire War­ren Buf­fett, who has said it’s unfair that his sec­re­tary pays a higher tax rate than he does. Empha­siz­ing the point, Buffett’s sec­re­tary, Deb­bie Bosanek, attended the address in first lady Michelle Obama’s box.

Obama made his appeal on the same day that Rom­ney released some of his tax returns, show­ing he made more than $20 mil­lion in a sin­gle year and paid around 14 per­cent in taxes, largely because his wealth came from investments.

In advance of Obama’s speech, Rom­ney said, “Tonight will mark another chap­ter in the mis­guided poli­cies of the last three years — and the failed lead­er­ship of one man.”

Obama high­lighted his national secu­rity suc­cesses — the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the dimin­ished strength of al-Qaida and the demise of Moam­mar Gad­hafi. In hail­ing the men and women of the mil­i­tary, the com­man­der in chief con­trasted their coop­er­a­tion and ded­i­ca­tion with the divi­sions and acri­mony in Washington.

“At a time when too many of our insti­tu­tions have let us down, they exceed all expec­ta­tions,” Obama said. “They’re not con­sumed with per­sonal ambi­tion. They don’t obsess over their dif­fer­ences. They focus on the mis­sion at hand. They work together. Imag­ine what we could accom­plish if we fol­lowed their example.”

Obama leaves Wash­ing­ton for a three-day tour of five states cru­cial to his re-election bid. On Wednes­day he’ll visit Iowa and Ari­zona to pro­mote ideas to boost Amer­i­can man­u­fac­tur­ing; on Thurs­day in Nevada and Col­orado he’ll dis­cuss energy; and in Michi­gan on Fri­day he’ll talk about col­lege afford­abil­ity, edu­ca­tion and training.

He also addresses a con­fer­ence of House Democ­rats focused on their own re-election in Cam­bridge, Md., on Friday.

Polling shows Amer­i­cans are divided about Obama’s over­all job per­for­mance but unsat­is­fied with his han­dling of the economy.

Biden was inter­viewed on ABC’s “Good Morn­ing Amer­ica,” NBC’s “Today” show and “CBS This Morn­ing.” Can­tor appeared on CBS and MSNBC.

Posted by AP News on Jan 25 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.