In his second State of the Union Address, given on Tuesday, 25 Jan 2011, President Obama hit on six major themes which I have summarized and provided a brief analysis.
- The Changed Economy. What worked for our parents and grandparents, no longer works for us.
- A More Educated Workforce. Most decent jobs now require more than a high school diploma.
- Reform in Government. Greater efficiency with less debt.
- Tax and Legislative Reform. Close loopholes for the richest (not a new proposal, but still worthwhile) and eliminate earmarks.
- Cultural Change. Return America to the moral high ground. Improve the new Health Care law instead of eliminating it.
- Focus on the Future. We must be unified in common goals, regardless of party or creed, in order to effect necessary changes for us to remain competitive.
THE CHANGED ECONOMY
The strength of the stock market, quarterly corporate profits and economic growth by themselves are no longer adequate assessments of overall economic strength.
Manufacturing jobs are no longer as plentiful as they once were. In addition, fewer employers can guarantee lifetime employment as was the expected norm in generations past.
We must recognize our role in the global economy, and shift the focus of the majority of our workforce from assembly line and physical labor to knowledge skills, in order to ensure we remain engaged in that economy.
To attract new business in the global market, we must upgrade our infrastructure by providing reliable and affordable metropolitan and interstate rail transportation and ensure that high-bandwidth; low-cost, ubiquitous Internet access is available throughout the Nation.
Innovation is necessary for the survival of the American Dream. The old status quo is obsolete.
Continued subsidies for fossil fuels have no future. We must reinvest those monies in tomorrow’s energy sources and technologies. In order to invest in the future, we must focus not on old industries, but newer disciplines like biomedicine, information technology and clean energy.
A MORE EDUCATED WORKFORCE
We have great institutions of higher education in this country. Unfortunately, inadequate numbers of our own citizens attend them. Creative thinking, not rote memorization, is where America’s strength lies.
To prevent more jobs from going offshore, we must raise the general education level of our Nation’s workforce.
Teachers must be knowledgeable, as well as motivated to and effective in imparting that knowledge to their students. And they must be commensurately compensated for those efforts. Ineffective teachers must be able to be removed from the classroom in an equitable and expeditious manner.
The government should not be supporting mismanaged financial institutions by infusions of taxpayer dollars, but instead, must invest in developing the intellectual capital of this nation.
REFORM IN GOVERNMENT
We need to recognize that the time has come for reform in American government, budget, and business models. We must lean forward in order to keep up with the pace of change.
The federal government, as it operates today, is based an obsolete industrial paradigm which is bloated, inefficient, and anachronistic. It drags down our competitiveness in global markets and must be restructured in order to increase our competitiveness through greater economy, expertise and efficiency.
We need to eliminate a decade of deficit, not by slashing madly at spending, and programs that help us strategically build our future, but by eliminating inefficiencies, duplication and waste everywhere it appears in government. We also need legislation passed for tort reform in malpractice lawsuits and other legal actions which do not serve the true objective of justice.
Government regulations which create unnecessary barriers to business growth must be revised or eliminated to remove these obstacles.
TAX AND LEGISLATIVE REFORM
The income tax structure in this nation penalizes too many hard-working honest mid-sized businesses, who cannot afford high-powered accountants and lawyers to find them loopholes to avoid paying taxes.
Tax breaks for the richest place an inequitable burden on the middle class, and must be eliminated.
Transparency in knowing how tax revenues are spent, and how lobbying influence is levied, are necessary in order to ensure an informed citizenry. Pork-barrel legislation must become a thing of the past.
CULTURAL CHANGE AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
We must abandon the gross public hypocrisies of the past, and be able to set a proper moral example for those in the world who would try to replace our freedoms with an oppressive fascistic theocracy molded in their own flawed image.
Obamacare is recognized as an imperfect solution—but it is far better to improve its weak areas, rather than repealing the law wholesale. Provisions currently in effect preclude insurance companies from denying coverage to those who need it most. Repealing it would remove this provision, along with other long-overdue consumer/beneficiary protections.
FOCUS ON THE FUTURE
We need to move past the partisan bickering of the past, and move forward together focusing instead on what is best for us as a Nation.
Change will be hard—and it will not be easy to build consensus—but it is our ability to ultimately do so in the face of different views and beliefs that has always made the United States of America the best nation on Earth in which to live.
Original text of speech can be reviewed at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/us/politics/26obama-text.html?scp=4&sq=obama%20speech&st=cse
