Last night President Obama made the annual State of the Union speech addressing his plans for budgets, free education, tax overhauls and new worker protections.
“Tonight, we turn the page,” Obama declared, claiming: “The shadow of crisis has passed.”
A main focus for President Obama’s final two years in office will be the middle class, in which he refers to as “Middle Class Economics.” As the unemployment percentage gets lower and lower, and more and more families are covered by health insurance, President Obama is now focusing on the working class and providing them with more money to spend.
He has threatened that if any bill approaches his desk that will alter his large to-do list, he will veto it. As Congress is now mainly Republican, they have a to-do list of their own which is indeed guaranteed to cause several problems.
The President plans include, allowing the first two years of community college to be free in order to give more and more American’s a chance at an education. But the condition is to maintain a 2.5 GPA. This will likely cost $60 billion over the next ten years by increasing capital gain taxes and placing a fee on several financial firms.
He also spoke about increasing the minimum wage and posed the question, “To everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it. If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise.” This increase that has been on the table for several years now would allow a higher income for the middle class and provide them with a stronger foundation.
One thing President Obama has done for this country where other Presidents have side stepped is to focus on the middle class. Many Presidents claim to do it, but no real course of action genuinely takes place. The President has done the impossible by putting a new health care plan into effect, (whether it was wanted or works well or not) and now moves to reduce the cost of education.
In a country where the wealthy remain wealthy on the backs of the working class he stated, “Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well? Or will we commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort?”
Via RushHourDaily
