State of The Union

The State of the Union address by the President of the United States is an important connection that is made between the President and the people of the country. Paper Masters will examine any state of the union address by any president and custom write a research paper that explicates the speech.

On January 26th, 2011, President Barack Obama gave his third State of the Union address. For the first time, he gave it while speaking to a Republican majority in the House of Representatives. The Republicans has largely decided to not participate in the first two years of governing and did nothing but obstruct progress. Now they would also have responsibility for governing. Coming less than three weeks after the tragic death of several people in Tucson and the assassination attempt on congresswoman Gabby Giffords, Democrats and Republicans broke with tradition to sit mixed on the House floor as opposed to separated by party. The President would try to set a tone of an above the fray, pragmatic problem solver while speaking to this very different Congress and the American people watching at home.

As his theme for the State of the Union, President Obama decided to focus on "winning the future", setting a solid foundation for future American prosperity by making necessary investments in the following aspects of our national agenda:

1. Education
2. Infrastructure and energy innovation for a future without fossil fuels
3. He called for obtaining 80% of Americans power from renewable sources by 2035 and putting one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.
4. He called for paying for these programs by cutting subsidies to oil and gas companies.
5. In a surprise slap to these powerful industries, he stated that we should no longer subsidize the industries of the past but be looking to subsidize those of the future.
6. The President called for new spending and programs to help bring these projects to market.

The president also called for major reforms in both individual and corporate tax codes. He suggested simplifying much of the code and using the savings to lower overall rates. He also called for a major reorganization of government bureaucracy to increase effectiveness and lower waste.

Overall the president used his time to call set himself apart and reinforce his message the reasonable, pragmatic problem solver. We certainly know the race for 2012 has begun, whether we can solve actual problems with our viciously divided government is yet to be seen.