With President Obama’s State of the Union address coming up next week, themes are starting to be release by senior officials. Apparently President Obama’s second term is off to such a weak start, he has decided to go with inequality as a major theme of his speech next Tuesday.
It’s not surprising that Obama will focus on income inequality in his address, as many of his appearances lately have been centered on this issue. The president has yet to get many of his initiatives from his first term accomplished, so it seems best for him to return to basics.
A senior administration official said the president will call for a raise in minimum wage to $10 per hour. He will also ask congress to extend federal unemployment benefits that expired last month. We have already heard many democratic talking points on inequality and it’s not shocking to see the president go back to an easy point to make in his failing second term.
The White House sees the State of the Union as a key part of the president’s second-term reboot, and will accentuate it with a presidential road trip where Obama will tout his proposals.
Obama — who has trumpeted 2014 as a “year of action” — will also devote considerable time in the address, which he’s been working on for the past month, on how he'll use executive action to move along his agenda, the official said.
The emphasis on executive action and messaging on income inequality are both intended to rally Obama’s political base, which lost confidence in the president during the difficult first year of his second term.
We already know what President Obama is going to say, he has said it a million times before. So much for innovative new ideas in the second term.