President Obama last night tried to reboot his presidency, acknowledging candidly that Americans have lost faith in him but vowing that “I don’t quit” as he tried to rally voters behind him and recapture the energy that propelled him to the White House.
The remarks came in the president’s first State of the Union Address, which he delivered to Congress a week after the astonishing GOP Senate win in Massachusetts.
Obama urged that Washington overcome a “deficit of trust,” while resetting his focus squarely on creating jobs and fixing the faltering economy.
“I campaigned on the promise of change — ‘change we can believe in,’ the slogan went. And right now, I know there are many Americans who aren’t sure if they still believe we can change — or at least, that I can deliver it,” Obama said, in a surprisingly frank concession.
“But remember this — I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I can do it alone.”
He added, “Change has not come fast enough.”
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He recognized the fears of Americans and said, “People are out of work. They are hurting. They need our help. And I want a jobs bill on my desk without delay.”
But he lobbed shots at congressional Republicans — most of whom sat silently when the Democrats applauded Obama — accusing them of thwarting change. “Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership,” he said.
He continued to push for his signature issue — health-care reform — and put some of the blame on his own shoulders for not explaining the issue well enough to the public.
“Do not walk away from reform,” Obama urged the joint session of lawmakers packed into the House chamber. “Not now. Not when we are so close.”
He added, “By now, it should be clear that I didn’t take on health care because it’s good politics. I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people.”
But he didn’t point to a way forward with it.
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He noted the “anxieties” of the American public amid the financial crisis.
“If there’s one thing that has unified Democrats and Republicans, it’s that we all hated the bank bailout,” he said, to applause and laughs. “I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal.”
The president called for bipartisan help in rebuilding the economy, and said it must be a priority, calling for a string of small-business tax credits, $30 billion in money recouped from ailing banks to help community banks, and other incentives.
“We face a deficit of trust — deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years,” Obama said.
But while he talked about fixes, his ideas were relatively small-scale.
He was dismissive about the seismic moment in Massachusetts, saying it was “clear that campaign fever has come even earlier than usual,” even though it imperiled Obama’s domestic agenda and created a rocky fall landscape for Democrats.
He called for a congressional repeal of the ban on gays in the military, and said he wants to press forward with the controversial cap-and-trade legislation to curb greenhouse gases.
But the speech, which ran for 1 hour, 11 minutes, was as notable for what wasn’t in it as for what was.
Obama made no mention of closing the Guantanamo Bay terror prison, and didn’t raise his previously announced plan to tighten banking regulation.
Obama did focus heavily on cutting the yawning, $1.4 trillion projected federal deficit through some spending freezes and a nonbinding, bipartisan deficit-reduction task force. He vowed to trim $20 billion of fat from failing programs in the next budget.
He insisted Americans share “a stubborn resilience in the face of adversity.
“It is because of this spirit — this great decency and great strength — that I have never been more hopeful about America’s future than I am tonight. Despite our hardships, our union is strong. We do not give up. We do not quit.”
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was chosen to give the GOP response to the speech, and said, “Today, the federal government is simply trying to do too much.”