Obama’s Solo: The U.S. President Addressed America and Recalled the Soviet Satellite

The 44th American president, Barack Obama, addressing both houses of Congress in the annual “State of the Union” speech, shared his ambitious plan on how America will “win the future.”

Obama’s “speech,” with a long-range goal for the presidential elections next year, was filled with optimism despite the new political landscape in Washington with the drastically intensified positions of the Republicans on Capitol Hill. After winning the U.S. presidential election amid the economic crisis more than two years ago, Obama had already made economic issues his “number one” priority.

Despite all the time that has since passed, the issues of creating jobs, improvement of the financial well-being of Americans and the investment climate in the U.S. are still among the priorities of the current occupant of the White House.

Barack Obama “played solo” for over 61 minutes in front of the American Congress and explained his vision for “the state of the Union.” The president underlined issues regarding the creation of new jobs and the strengthening of small- and medium-scale businesses that are the foundation of the economy. He also stressed the need for the overall improvement of America’s competitive ability by introducing innovations and large-scale investments in education.

Interestingly, when the U.S. president was talking about innovations, he was quite specific in expounding on his “bright American future” vision. Thus, in Obama’s opinion, 80 percent of all the electric power in America has to be produced with the use of “clean energy sources” by the year 2035, and no fewer than a million electric vehicles have to be on U.S. roads by the year 2015.

Obama doesn’t see alternatives to large-scale investments into infrastructure: first of all, the development of high-speed rails and a well-known initiative of wireless Internet coverage extending across the country.

It turned out that the U.S. president already knows about “the successful building of modern railway lines by the governments of China, Korea, the European Union and Russia.”* But Obama is strongly convinced that America, having the experience of building the first transcontinental railway behind it, must do it “even better” than others.

The U.S. president recalled, very symbolically, half-a-century-old events when the USSR “beat [America] into space.” Mr. Obama explained that after all, the very launching of the first Soviet space satellite gave [the U.S.] a powerful shake, which increased American investment into scientific research and education. As a result, the first black leader of the U.S. concluded that “this is our generation’s Sputnik moment.”

Analysts say the main characteristic of the speech by the American leader became not its content but the political reality in which it was made. Indeed, applause to Mr. Obama visually demonstrated the degree of polarization of the divided American Congress. Notably, only the fellow Democrats stood up to applaud the U.S. leader, while their political opponents, the Republicans, stayed sitting stone-faced. In this tense situation, the president himself tried to make a joke when, speaking of the health care reform that has become a real apple of discord on Capitol Hill, he said, “I’ve heard rumors that a few of you have some concerns about the new health care law. So let me be the first to say that anything can be improved. If you have ideas about how to improve this law by making care better or more affordable, I am eager to work with you.”

*Editor’s Note: While this section is accurately translated from the article’s original text, the content differs somewhat from President Obama’s “State of the Union” address: “South Korean homes now have greater Internet access than we do. Countries in Europe and Russia invest more in their roads and railways than we do. China is building faster trains and newer airports.”