Obama for Employment

Nobody denies that Barack Obama is a great speaker. But his State of the Union speech was more than just rhetoric. Following a tradition that has, since the times of Harry Truman, given presidents the right to be broadcast on TV throughout the United States, the president spoke to citizens in his usual style, with an open heart, and promised not only to create wealth but to also redistribute it across the nation.

With the decisive re-election day of Nov. 6 approaching, the president bet on a speech heavily laced with political messages, focusing on the economy, but also exclaiming his external political triumphs. As a matter of fact, it is not a coincidence that the figures fighting to be the Republican candidate avoid discussing diplomacy, as they know that Obama has Osama bin Laden’s elimination on his list of achievements.

On the issue of economy, which is possibly his weakest area, the president promised to create jobs and thus contribute to the re-launching of prosperity. These words would have pleased the population, as it is not used to an 8.5 percent unemployment rate. And when it comes to combating inequality, he defended Warren Buffett’s proposal to tax incomes over $1 million by 30 percent. A blow to Mitt Romney, Obama’s possible rival in the presidential elections, who has a wealth of $250 million and who, as it was discovered last week, paid a tax of 14 percent on an annual income of $21 million.

The Republicans did not wait to react. Obama was accused of making a pro-poverty speech and of promoting class warfare. But one of his sentences is worth more than all the criticism: He will not allow for a return to the politics that led to the 2007–09 recession. This was a message to the Republicans, who, during George Bush’s administration, cut the taxes of the wealthiest against the will of some of them, such as Buffett, the third richest person in the world.