Obama Vows to Push To Lift the Economy
President Says He’ll Seek Higher Minimum
Wage, Immigration Reform, Gun Controls

 

By CALVIN S. SCRIBNER
Special to the Chronicle

WASHINGTON--President Barack Obama, seeking to put the prosperity and promise of the middle-class at the heart of his second-term agenda, called on Congress on Tuesday night to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour, saying that would lift millions out of poverty and energize the economy.
In a State of the Union Address that fleshed out the populist themes of his inauguration speech last month, the president declared it was “our generation’s task” to “reignite the true engine of America’s economic growth--a rising, thriving middle-class.”
“A growing economy that creates good middle-class jobs--that must be our North Star,” he said. “Every day, we should ask ourselves three questions as a nation: How do we attract more jobs to our shores?
“How do we equip our people with the skills to do those jobs? And how do we make sure that hard work leads to a decent living?”
The increase in the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour now, was the most tangible of a raft of initiatives laid out by the president, from education and energy, which President Obama said would accelerate the nation’s economic recovery by helping those in the broad middle-class.
Raising the minimum, which the White House said would affect at least 15 million workers, also holds political appeal for younger Americans, struggling workers and labor groups, all of which were important to the president’s reelection victory.
Speaking to a divided Congress, with many Republicans still smarting from his electoral victory last November, President Obama declared, “Together, we have cleared away the rubble of crisis, and say with renewed confidence that the state of the union is stronger.”
He urged lawmakers to act on immigration, climate change, the nation‘s fiscal woes and, above all, gun violence, offering an emotional appeal that drew heavily on recent tragedies like the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn.
If they do not move, he said, he will use his executive authority to enact his own measures.
Mr. Obama also spoke darkly of the consequences of a failure to reach a budget deal, which would set off automatic spending cuts on the military and other government programs. “These sudden, harsh, arbitrary cuts would jeopardize our military readiness,” he said, describing them as a “really bad idea.”
The president took the podium after a rousing welcome from lawmakers and other dignitaries.
In a speech dominated by domestic issues, President Obama admonished North Korea a day after it tested a nuclear weapon. He warned the country’s reclusive government that it faced further isolation, swift retaliation and a United States bent on improving its own missile defense systems.
But as new threats erupted, old threats, the president said, were receding.
He announced, for example, that 34,000 troops would return home from Afghanistan by this time next year.
That withdrawal, representing half the current American force, underlined his resolve to wind down the second war of his presidency as quickly as he did the one in Iraq.
The president was not trying to match the lofty tone of his inauguration speech, but the address was clearly intended to be its own workmanlike companion. In place of his ringing call for a more equitable society was a package of proposals--some requiring legislation; others merely an executive order--that constitute a blueprint for the remainder of his presidency.
Among the proposals was a $1 billion investment to create 15 institutes to develop new manufacturing technologies, building on the success of a pilot project in Youngstown, Ohio.
He said he would use oil and gas royalties from federal lands to pay for research in clean energy technology that would wean cars and trucks off oil.
And he recycled a proposal to help homeowners refinance their mortgages at lower rates.
None of these proposals, the president said, would add to the deficit, since they were consistent with the budget deal of 18 months ago.
“It’s not a bigger government we need,” he said, “but a smarter government that sets priorities and invests in broad-based growth.”
Still, President Obama signaled that the era of single-minded deficit-cutting should end.
He noted that the recent agreements on taxes and spending reduced the deficit by $2.5 trillion, more than halfway toward the $4 trillion in reductions that economists say would put the nation’s finances on a sustainable course.
“It is our unfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this country,” he said. “The idea that if you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead, no matter where you come from, what you look like, or who you love.”
“It is our unfinished task to make sure that this government works on behalf of the many, and not just the few,” he said. “That it encourages free enterprise, rewards individual initiative and opens the doors of opportunity to every child across this great nation of ours.”