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On January 20, President Barack Obama delivered his constitutionally required State of the Union address to Congress. In it, he said that America was on the road to economic recovery, having escaped the perils of the 2008 financial crisis, and he announced that Americans had turned the page in the war against terrorism. The President also announced his drive to provide two years of free community college to millions of Americans, increase taxes on the wealthy, and give mandated paid sick leave to working Americans. The Republican rebuttal was delivered by newly elected Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, who said that the President needs to take the threat from the Islamic State more seriously, that more needed to be done to thwart cyberterrorism, and that Americans should have more freedom to achieve the American dream. Political pundits saw the State of the Union as an attempt by President Obama to lay out the political platform for his successor in 2016, while others saw it as an attempt by the President to rejuvenate his administration and avoid lame duck status. While there is little chance of many of President Obama’s domestic initiatives becoming law in 2015, extempers should still be aware of what the President said in the State of the Union because it is usually a good benchmark to assess the success of a presidency in any given year.
This topic brief will explore President Obama’s proposals in the State of the Union Address, the Republican reaction to it, and how the President may try to enact some of his policies in 2015.
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