WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama launched his final year in office with a valedictory State of the Union address Tuesday night that painted a portrait of a prosperous and secure America but warned of peril ahead if the country can’t break the political logjam in Washington.
His final rendition of the annual speech focused more on aspirational themes than on ambitious new plans, and contained only a handful of requests to Congress. At just under an hour, it was among the shortest of his seven State of the Union speeches.
In a rare admission of fault, Obama acknowledged he is not blameless for the hardened, hyper-partisan political atmosphere of his tenure in the White House.
“It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better,” he said before a joint session of Congress.
But Obama peppered his speech with veiled zingers aimed at his critics — including lawmakers listening in the House chamber and the leading GOP candidates battling to succeed him — in one of his most edgy public addresses. His statements made clear he intends to add his voice to the 2016 presidential race.
Citing his push to make college education more affordable, for example, he noted that a good education isn’t enough in an economy undergoing profound change.
“After all, it’s not much of a stretch to say that some of the only people in America who are going to work the same job, in the same place, with a health and retirement package, for 30 years, are sitting in this chamber,” he told members of Congress, some of whom sat stonily.
Without naming Donald Trump, Obama seemed to focus much of his speech at rebutting, point by point, the harsh political arguments on the economy, immigration, Islam and national security that have helped make the billionaire businessman the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.
“Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction” and “political hot air,” Obama said.
“Well, so is all the rhetoric you hear about our enemies getting stronger and America getting weaker,” he added. America is “the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It’s not even close.”
He called on Americans to reject politics that target people because of race or religion. “This isn’t a matter of political correctness,” he said.
When politicians insult Muslims, he added, “that doesn’t make us safer. That’s not telling it like it is. It’s just wrong.”
He also fought back against arguments that his administration has underplayed the danger from Islamic State and other terrorist groups, contending that “over-the-top claims that this is World War III just play into their hands.”
“Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks and twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages pose an enormous danger to civilians and must be stopped,” he said. “But they do not threaten our national existence.”
He also took on his critics on the issue of climate change, citing the international agreement signed last month in Paris to combat the causes of global warming.
“Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it,” he said. “You’ll be pretty lonely because you’ll be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to solve it.”
The Republicans’ appointed critic for the night, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, was just as cutting in the GOP response after Obama finished speaking.
“The president’s record has often fallen far short of his soaring words,” Haley said.
Obama gave credit to new House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wisconsin, and said he welcomed “a serious discussion” with him about helping low-income workers.
Ryan sat behind Obama impassively, rising once or twice to applaud U.S. troops. Three months after Ryan rose to his new position, he still has not had the customary one-on-one welcome meeting at the White House.
Even if relations warm with the new speaker, Obama does not expect the Republican-led Congress to embrace his call for gun safety, immigration policy reform or a higher minimum wage. That will not stop him from pushing for those goals, advisers said.
Obama laid out his plans for building on his legacy in words that rang familiar after his seven years in office.
He said the nation must consider several questions, regardless of who wins the next election. How does the country give everyone a “fair shot” in the new economy and make technology work for people and not against them? How does government keep Americans safe, but not become the world’s policeman?
And how can we make sure that “our politics reflect what’s best in us, and not what’s worst?” he asked.
In response, he talked about preparing the workforce for the changing marketplace, and pushing for universal pre-kindergarten and college affordability while also safeguarding Social Security and Medicare. He pledged support for Vice President Joe Biden’s “moonshot” project to cure cancer.
On foreign policy, Obama implicitly rejected what his staff sees as a binary choice that his Republican critics offer between isolation from the global community and sending U.S. troops to occupy foreign countries.
He defended his policy of engagement with Iran, Cuba and China, and argued that it has advanced American interests around the world.
He urged Americans to welcome refugees from the Syrian civil war, and he called for expanding trade, starting with the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership deal.
He said he still wants to close the controversial U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a plan complicated by the fact that federal law bans the transfer of terrorism suspects from there to U.S. soil.
“Leadership means a wise application of military power, and rallying the world behind causes that are right,” he said. “That’s strength. That’s leadership.”
“There is this doubling-down on a dark vision on the state of the American economy and the state of America’s leadership around the world that he believes is just not true,” Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser who helped shape the president’s speech, said earlier Tuesday. “The danger of that is if we make decisions based on those assumptions, they lead us to do the wrong things.”
The speech was noteworthy for the absence of policy details. Aides to the president say he is returning more to the tone of his 2008 campaign speeches, the ones that won the electorate to his side in the first place.
As he neared the end of his speech, Obama veered away from policy altogether, rising into a sermon-like oratory on the state of American politics.
He decried the practice of gerrymandering — the drawing of congressional district maps by dominant state political officials to favor their parties. Voters should pick their representatives “and not the other way around.”
Beyond that, Obama said, Americans have gotten out of practice of working out their differences.
Change will only happen, he said, “if we can have rational, constructive debates,” he said. “It will only happen if we fix our politics.”
In a statement after Obama’s address, Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said, “The president is right to describe this as a time of extraordinary change, and I believe we face some huge challenges. Even though we have nearly 8 million new jobs and ended the wars in the Middle East, there are still families all across the country struggling to make ends meet and we face extraordinary challenges to our security at home and abroad. We’ve come a long way but still have a long way to go.
“I’m also glad that President Obama used this opportunity to call for cooperation and a higher level of debate between the parties,” Pingree said. “And I hope politicians follow his lead and reject the politics of division that targets people based on their race and religion.
Pingree brought a Yarmouth man, Tabin Tangila mesu Kamba, to sit in the House Chamber and watch the speech as her guest. Tangila mesu Kamba was an activist in his home country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2011, the presidential election there generated a great deal of chaos and violence, which caused Tabin to fear for his safety. He fled to the United States and was granted asylum status in Maine.
Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, said Tuesday night in a news release that he was “ready” to work together to face issues but criticized the president’s speech for its support of what Poliquin called “failed policies.”
“The president is insistent on maintaining some of the most flawed parts of Obamacare, a health care law that has had devastating effects on families in Maine and has crippled our local businesses. The president has made clear his intent on attacking law-abiding citizens and blaming our Second Amendment right for terror attacks on American soil. He also demonstrated, once again, his misunderstanding of the national security threats that our nation faces today by doubling-down on his position to keep Guantanamo Bay open and to proceed with a dangerous nuclear deal with Iran, the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism,” he said.
However, Poliquin applauded the president for addressing one of Maine’s greatest challenges.
“I am glad the president mentioned the opioid and heroin crisis that is ravaging our country, especially our communities in Maine,” he continued. “This is a critical, bipartisan issue and I am glad the president has brought national attention to it tonight.”
Poliquin brought with him 90-year-old Norman Rossignol of Bangor, an Army veteran of World War II and the Korean War who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and a Bronze Star. Poliquin said he’s “so proud” to represent Rossignol and other veterans. “I thank them whenever I have the chance for their sacrifices to keep us safe and free.”
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, in a release issued Tuesday night called Obama’s speech a “powerful vision for the future of our country.”
“I also heard him call for a better politics, for civility and for a reasoned debate that rises to meet the seriousness of the issues before us. I agree,” he continued. “ And in the final year of his presidency, I hope he will lead by example and more deeply engage — not sideline — Congress to advance the work of the American people.
“Because, as we head into this year, there is no doubt that we will continue to face difficult challenges — from confronting the ever-present threat of terrorism to fighting the drug epidemic tearing at the fabric of our communities to improving our economy and creating more jobs. But if we can come together — Republicans, Independents, and Democrats alike — to find common-ground, then I am confident we can overcome the partisanship and election year politics to accomplish something meaningful for the American people.”
King brought with him Earl Adams of Pittston, an independent who served as Maine’s adjutant general from 1995 to 2001, when King was governor. Adams helped lead the Maine National Guard’s response to the 1998 ice storm.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in a statement issued Tuesday night commended Obama for urging both sides of the aisle to come together to address issues but also expressed concern about the lack of an explicit strategy to deal with terrorism.
“I was pleased to hear the president call for our country to come together to tackle the challenges we face,” Collins said. “The problems, both at home and abroad, are too important to be stymied by incivility, extremism or hyper-partisanship. I hope that the president will follow through on his call for cooperation and work in a bipartisan fashion rather than resorting to executive orders which exacerbate political tensions and circumvent Congress. The president’s support for a greater investment in biomedical research has broad, bipartisan appeal and is an example of where we can work together to advance more effective treatments and even cures or a means of prevention of diseases that affect so many American families.
“I am concerned that the president did not present a strategy for dealing with terrorism,” she continued. “While President Obama is certainly correct that Islamist extremist groups do not pose a threat to our country’s existence, he does not appear to have a comprehensive strategy for defeating ISIS, al-Qaida and similar terrorist groups that seek to harm Americans and our allies.”
Collins brought with her Portland lawyer Betsey McCandless, a friend.
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