State of the Union: small ambitions, with a smile

What happened to the visionary politician who promised that his inauguration would mark the moment the rise of the oceans began to slow?

Simple: Reality has sunk in.

In year six of Obama's presidency, modest proposals are the most appropriate offering. The president has much to be modest about — and no real alternative. The president's sway has ebbed even further since his re-election in 2012, thanks to the chaotic launch of his health insurance program and the economy's stubborn failure to produce enough new jobs.

Bipartisan legislation on one big issue might still be possible: immigration reform. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has said he wants to try to pass a series of immigration bills this year, and Obama says he's willing to make a deal.

But expect downsized ambition to be the order of the day.

Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times

It's natural to contrast Obama's soaring legislative ambitions of a year ago with this week's less adventurous "I'll do it myself" speech. But he has to deal with the Congress he has, not the Congress he wishes he had. And realism in pursuit of a degree of social justice is no vice.

Obama's speech acknowledged the obvious: Congress has become a dead end for most of the big, muscular uses of government to redress income inequality and improve the economy, because of implacable Republican opposition. The remainder of Obama's presidency will be largely devoted to smaller actions that the White House can perform on its own.

Taking the offensive by veering around Congress isn't new for the administration, but it is more important than ever. As the president forcefully described, inequality has deepened and upward mobility has stalled.

The only way to truly affect the economy on a mass scale, and to make a difference for tens of millions of people instead of a few hundred thousand, is to persuade Congress to go along on the major initiatives the president was forced to repeat in his remarks, such as extending jobless benefits, creating high-quality preschool for all 4-year-olds and, especially, raising the minimum wage.

One particularly promising request the president made of Congress was to expand the earned income tax credit, which now benefits 15 million families a year, to workers without children. That would not only boost the incomes of many at the bottom of the ladder, but it would provide the incentive to work that many Republicans say they support.

Pushing for a vote would reveal whether Republicans are so opposed to anything Obama wants that they would reject their own ideas. As important as executive orders can be, they should not replace showing that Republicans are voting against the public's wishes.

Suppose you are president; you've stumbled, fumbled, slipped and crashed. It's time to give a State of the Union speech. What do you do? Say you are sorry and that you will try harder? Or take credit for good things you did not do, blame the bad things you did do on others and propose solutions that sound good to the gullible even though they will make things worse?

Obama chose the latter course, pumping up his presentation with bravado of a constitutionally abrasive kind that said he would get done what needed to get done, whether Congress helped or not.

After all, he made clear, it was up to him as the great American hero to save the weak and helpless from economic evils and dastardly Republicans. He may be the president who gave us the still-scary threat of Obamacare and the most emaciated, laggard economic recovery since World War II, but he is a razzle-dazzle showman.

It's true that he occasionally came close to worthy ideas, as in telling us how he wanted to increase the earned income tax credit that is essentially welfare for low-wage working people and a much better means of helping low-income families than the fraud of hiking the federal minimum wage, which Obama urged Tuesday night.

Jay Ambrose, McClatchy-Tribune

In the actual speech, however, Obama's tone was relatively nonconfrontational. And if his proposals for executive action did not live up to the hype, they also did not justify the fear-mongering.

Far from dictating to Congress, Obama repeatedly acknowledged the necessity of legislative support for his agenda. Indeed, he invited it. Two items on his list — extended unemployment benefits and a higher minimum wage for all workers — should receive support but, in the Republican-controlled House, probably won't.

Other items, though, have at least a chance at passage: updating patent law, authority to pursue tariff-slashing trade deals in Asia and Europe, and Obama's welcome pitch for housing finance reform all should win some GOP backing. The president proposed expanding the earned income tax credit to include childless workers, which would improve work incentives and lift many single men and women out of poverty. This idea also has the virtue, politically, of taking what was originally a GOP program and reshaping it in a way that's at least not inconsistent with recent anti-poverty proposals from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

If the Republicans think their political interest lies in rejecting everything Obama favors, as their political base sometimes seems to prefer, they could easily find material in the president's speech, and in the attitude the White House projected prior to it, to justify that stance.

But if they prefer to pursue tangible achievements, the president has laid out several opportunities that don't involve betraying party principle.

Despite the conciliatory gestures, Obama was resolute where he had to be. He warned Republicans that it would be futile to schedule "another 40-something votes" to repeal the Affordable Care Act, "a law that's already helping millions of Americans." And he offered a crisp defense of negotiations with Iran over that country's nuclear program, promising that "if this Congress sends me a new sanctions bill now that threatens to derail these talks, I will veto it."

In general, however, despite the hyperpartisan atmosphere on Capitol Hill, Obama's speech amounted to a call for collaboration. Congressional Republicans, who are still suffering from the spectacle of their disastrous shutdown of the federal government, would be wise to respond in kind.

Los Angeles Times

As expected, the president put forth the notion that if Congress wouldn't or couldn't act, he would find appropriate ways to make something happen. He did so with more congeniality and less attitude than many pre-speech analysts had predicted.

But as for big and bold new initiatives or needle-moving plans, we didn't see them. We wish Obama had left out the unfortunately futile stuff — does anyone expect to see Guantanamo prison closed in 2014? — and presented a more tightly focused agenda.

"Men and women like Cory," Obama said, "remind us that America never comes easy."

That's a lesson that Obama, in his presidency, has learned over and over.

Kansas City Star

Listening to Obama, we heard two takeaways that should be his realistic agenda before the acceleration of presidential campaigning in 2015 certifies his lame-duckery:

• Immigration reform should be a win-win-win for both parties and for Obama.

That's a spectacularly accurate if too-limited prediction of all that a reform to federal taxes and transfer programs could deliver. Even before his presidency began, Obama was saying the right things about the unsustainability of entitlement benefits; in budget wrangles with Republicans, he has agreed to Medicare reforms.

Imagine the potential power of a president who'll never run again gathering his economic priorities into one package. A path to debt reduction; encouragements to hire more workers; elimination of tax deductions and credits that tend to benefit the wealthy, and incentives to drive new growth: In one afternoon, Obama's policy team could draft an omnibus plan for financing federal operations, expanding the nation's workforce and assuring that today's benefits will exist for tomorrow's retirees. Stable and lower tax rates — paid for by scaling back those runaway deductions and credits — would benefit individuals and employers alike.

As a second-termer with goals he wants to accomplish, Obama is liberated. He can bundle his proposals in bows appealing to both parties. It could be done. Democrats and Republicans proved that with their tax megapackage late in Ronald Reagan's presidency.

Immigration reform, coupled with a rescue of federal finances and entitlement programs? Good for Obama, good for the historians who'll grade him — and good for the future of America.

Chicago Tribune

A big question for Democrats was whether Obama could give them a platform from which to wage the bruising battle for control of the Senate this fall. Philosophically, he has done that. Whether that's enough will depend on the response by Americans to the principles he reiterated Tuesday.

San Jose Mercury News

What was most striking about the speech may have been its tone: smooth, pleasant, nonconfrontational. It's almost as if Obama was enjoying himself.

Early on, he gave props to House Speaker John Boehner, though the compliment was personal, not political. Obama's call for a new immigration system was brief, and seemed designed mostly not to upset House Republicans as they go about the delicate task of trying to attract Democratic support for a reform bill while pretending otherwise. Even Obama's critique of Republican opposition to his health care law was more bemused than angry.

So the standard outraged partisan reaction to the speech, delivered as usual before the speech, seemed especially lame this year. (The official Republican response, by contrast, delivered after the speech by Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, was notable for its lack of rancor.)

Obama and the current Congress do not exactly have a productive history. If there is ever to be any cooperation, however, last night's tone can only help.