At the beginning
of every year, the President of the United States delivers a speech about the
executive office’s agenda. On most occasions the President walks into Congress
and delivers a televised prime time speech to the public with great
anticipation. I watched the speech live with some other people at a pizza
parlor as I did the previous year. I went home thinking that President Obama in
his 2014 State of the Union speech outlined specific actions that should
increase his popularity in a midterm election year, but I was unmoved when
Obama did not mention details.
Obama made clear
in his speech that his executive agenda would progress regardless of what
Congress did to stop it. Last year the House of Representatives, the majority
of them Republicans, voted many times to repeal the new health care law and
even shut down the federal government for a while to try and force the
President to accede to their demands. Therefore, the theme of Obama’s speech
was exercising executive authority to implement agenda items and asking
Congress to help him push what he believes the United States public wants from
their government. The most important example was Obama asking Congress to raise
the federal minimum wage to $10.10, but even if Congress does nothing, the
President will require the federal government to award contracts only to
companies that pay their employees that amount or higher. Obama backed up his
proposal with supporting evidence, that paying higher wages increases worker
morale and allows more spending in the economy. I appreciated more the stand
Obama made on negotiations about the Iranian nuclear program. The President
promised that he would veto any attempt to sabotage the negotiations with Iran
like through additional sanctions. I still worry that the United States will
blame Iran for the negotiation failure even if the rest of the world thinks the
United States caused more problems, but I don’t think Obama has much control
over that.
When the President
avoided specifics, I reacted with skepticism, but I also felt disgusted. To
circumvent Congress, Obama is proposing a new Treasury bond that would help
lower-income workers without business-supported retirement accounts to save
more. Obama called it myRA, but I will need more info on it before I would
recommend investing in it. My skepticism includes agenda items based on older
proposals like removing gender discrimination in wage earning, reforming the
immigration system, and closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The
President briefly mentioned the issues of global trade agreements and
government surveillance reform, and I know exactly why. The President is
pushing fast-track legislation to make it so that deals like the Trans Pacific
Partnership only get an up or down vote when they are finally delivered to
Congress even though the trade deals negotiated in secret may have questionable
provisions dealing with labor, environmental, and intellectual property
standards. Furthermore, Obama has said that he would reform government surveillance,
and by reform he means ignoring any abuse that might exist in the system,
deferring to the intelligence agencies that their work is legal and ethical,
and trying to shut up anyone who would be more transparent about what the
government is actually doing. The worst part was the talk about dealing with
Syria because of the act of omission that happens later. Obama said that the
United States “will continue to work with the international community to usher
in the future the Syrian people deserve -- a future free of dictatorship,
terror and fear.” After discussing his domestic position on the Iranian nuclear
negotiations, Obama added, “from Tunisia to Burma, we're supporting those who
are willing to do the hard work of building democracy.” The President did not
mention Egypt at all, probably because it embarrasses the United States to
support a military coup of a democratically elected government following the
overthrow of an autocratic regime. It may not be that simple, but the fact
remains that the United States is not supporting building democracy in Egypt in
the interest of regional stability, and Obama missed the opportunity to
actually help the Egyptian people when they demanded Mubarak leave power.
In the 2014 State
of the Union speech, President Obama outlined his agenda that could progress
regardless of Congressional obstruction. When Obama was getting specific about
his actions, I was pleased about his stances, but his overarching emotional
appeals and vague policy proposals were unimpressive and in some cases
disappointing. At least I got to meet a Congressional candidate running in my
district because I stayed late at the watch party. Maybe I will have a story to
tell about his upcoming Meet and Greet.
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