On Tuesday January 12, 2016, President Obama will deliver his final State of the Union address. It is largely expected to take a broad look at the president’s years in office, and White House aides have described the speech as “non-traditional.”
The White House released a preview of the speech on YouTube, but we at AEI thought to offer our own. What will he, won’t he, or would we hope he says about the fruits of his leadership, and 2016 and beyond? Read on for some ideas.
(And for more on the president’s legacy, read January’s AEI Political Report–An early look: Primary season and Obama’s legacy.)
President Obama delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 20, 2015. Reuters
Leon Aron (as President Obama):
Much to our regret and concern, Russia continues its dangerous drift away from European democratic and human rights values and norms, and toward a presidency-for-life dictatorship. As that country’s economy enters a deep recession with no end in sight, the regime must increasingly rely on aggressive foreign policy as the only reliable means of securing domestic political legitimacy. The results are the annexation of Crimea, the war on Ukraine, and now the bombings in Syria in order to prop up the Assad regime and in the process make Russia the most important external geopolitical player in the Middle East.
Given the domestic political imperative of stoking patriotic mobilization, the Kremlin’s assertive foreign policy is likely to continue. A personality-driven, revisionist, even messianic, autocracy in possession of 1,582 strategic nuclear warheads and 515 strategic launchers, Putin’s Russia is – and for a long time likely to remain –an unprecedented challenge to the United States and its allies – a clear and present danger that must be contained and thus requires an overhaul in the political, diplomatic and military strategy of the West.
I would like to see President Obama do in his last State of the Union speech what Bill Clinton did in the months following the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994: acknowledge that his views have been at least partially rejected by the voters; signal a willingness to engage seriously; and if possible compromise with the congressional majority and to respect the constitutional limits on his own power.
I do not expect him to take such an approach.
President Obama has shown that he understands how occupational licensing laws can kill innovation and entrepreneurship by denying opportunity and choice. He could use the State of the Union to spread this important message, and implore state and local lawmakers to get to work rolling back these rules, which disproportionately harm marginalized groups.
While he’s at it, Obama should take a cue from Teddy Kennedy and Jimmy Carter — who deregulated the airlines — and look at which federal rules protect incumbent businesses more than they protect consumers. No one could expect Obama to challenge the Volcker Rule, but maybe the Jones Act or outdated federal food-safety regulations could warrant review.
In 2010, President Obama challenged the country to “end homelessness across all populations.” What progress can he report nearly six years later at his final State of the Union address? There is little evidence that his administration’s housing-focused solutions have caused a significant reduction in homelessness; nor have they been shown to better help people overcome problems with addiction and mental illness.
It’s time to take the next step in homelessness policy: to provide truly transformative services that help people overcome their major problems and move on with their lives. Unlike the president’s goal of ending homelessness, that’s a challenge that puts people first, and with real innovation, has a chance to succeed.
Sadanand Dhume (as President Obama):
Until now, I’ve resisted using the words “radical Islamic terrorism” in the belief that this would make America safer and more secure. I was wrong. As attacks across the world— from Paris to San Bernardino to Beirut — have shown, the threat from radical groups inspired by a violent interpretation of Islam remains all too real. America cannot lead the world in fighting this scourge unless it first learns to name it. This will not play into the hands of those who cannot distinguish between peace-loving Muslims and extremists. On the contrary, it will give millions of peaceful Muslims a better shot at reclaiming their faith from the extremists who kill in its name.
Since Kim Jong Un’s botched debut attempt at international-shakedown diplomacy in early 2012, North Korea has maintained a somewhat less bellicose international posture than under previous rulers. But with its H-bomb test attempt this week, Pyongyang has served notice that America and her allies can no longer count on relative calm from the North. The Kim dynasty will never willingly relinquish it nuclear threat — and we already know that de-nuclearization talks with the regime are a fool’s errand.
In his last full year in office, the President can and should lay out a coherent approach to DPRK threat reduction — to limiting and diminishing North Korea’s capacities to inflict harm on the US, her allies, and others in the international community. The North Korean nuclear threat will last until the end of the current North Korean state. Meanwhile, America and her allies will have to undertake broad efforts to contain the killing power of this abominable government.
“The Kim dynasty will never willingly relinquish it nuclear threat — and we already know that de-nuclearization talks with the regime are a fool’s errand.”
President Obama’s last State of the Union address will take place at a time of gathering clouds over the global economic outlook. China’s large credit bubble is bursting, the all-important emerging market economies are being hit hard by low international commodity prices and a reversal of capital flows, and the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank are taking deliberate action to weaken the Japanese yen and the Euro.
In these challenging international economic circumstances, one would hope that the President will reassert US leadership of the global economic and financial system. In particular, one would hope that he will offer fresh ideas about how to promote global macroeconomic policy coordination, with a view to keeping international markets open and to preventing a further slide to beggar-my-neighbor currency adjustments that would be destructive to US and global economic prosperity.
One of the issues I would like to hear President Obama discuss are ways to pay for family leave, particularly maternity leave for women at the time of birth of a child. While the labor force participation rate for women has risen over the last few decades, one big reason why women end up dropping out of the workforce is because when they go on maternity leave, that leave is typically unpaid. Moreover, child care is extremely costly. This forces them to return to work too early, which is not in the best interests of the mother or the child. Or they drop out altogether in order to take care of the child.
If we had a system of paid leave combined with an expansion of the child and dependent care credit to help working families pay for the costs of childcare, some of these problems would be alleviated. My proposal for funding such leave, which I wrote up for the publication Tax Notes earlier this year, calls for making this credit refundable and allowing families to access the money available through these credits at the time when they need it the most, rather than at the end of the year when they file taxes.
Learn more about what AEI scholars are saying about the job market
Another idea that I would like to see discussed is the expansion of paid apprenticeship programs for youth. These seem to work well for young adults who can get training in specific fields while at the same time being paid, getting a degree, and ensuring that they have the skill set that employers are looking for. Such programs can be incentivized through employer tax credits, and have been shown to be successful, such as Apprenticeship Carolina.
Matt A. Mayer (as President Obama):
After nearly 13 years of mediocre performance and abysmal morale in the US Department of Homeland Security, I am launching a top-to-bottom review by outside experts of the US Department of Homeland Security that will look at (1) whether DHS should still exist or if we can increase effectiveness and efficiencies by placing its components in other departments; (2) which programs should continue to exist based upon current and expected future threats; and (3) which programs should be eliminated due to obsolescence or ineffectiveness beyond repair. We will provide this review to the next administration for action. I am also announcing that all DHS fusion centers will be merged into Joint Terrorism Task Forces or eliminated so that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the sole federal partner with state and local law enforcement on information and intelligence collection, analysis, and investigations.
Finally, given the complex issues we face, I am endorsing the proposal by Chairman McCaul and Senator Warner to establish a national commission on encryption to identify how best America can protect our liberties while giving law enforcement the tools it needs to keep us safe.
President Obama should address the issues that are currently most important and where he is in deepest conflict with Congress: the crisis in Syria and his executive actions about immigration and gun violence.
I would like to hear Obama discuss America’s shale energy revolution, and have him acknowledge the significant contribution that shale oil and gas have had for the US economy. Oil and gas prices are the lowest they’ve been in more than 5 years, while natural gas prices have fallen to their lowest level in 20 years. American consumers and businesses are saving billions of dollars in lower energy prices as a direct result of America’s abundant shale resources. Thanks to shale gas replacing coal for electricity generation, we have the lowest carbon emissions from the electric power sector in more than two decades. Our reliance on foreign sources of petroleum is the lowest since 1970, bringing us closer to the goal of energy independence that has been sought after for generations. In short, I would like Obama to recognize the most remarkable energy success story in US history : the shale revolution.
President Barack Obama delivers a statement on national security after receiving a briefing at the National Counterterrorism Center just outside Washington in McLean, Virginia December 17, 2015. Reuters
In his preview of his 2016 State of the Union, President Barack Obama says that what he wants to focus on is “not just the remarkable progress we’ve made, not just what I want to get done in the year ahead, but what we all need to do together in the years to come: The big things that will guarantee an even stronger, better, more prosperous America for our kids. That’s what’s on my mind.” The POTUS should be an optimist; don’t slam him for wanting great things for our country. Slam him for not talking about how the last seven years have seen an almost unprecedented decline not simply in our nation’s security, but in our ability to combat enemies near and far. Experience with this president teaches us that he — and to be fair, most other leaders – won’t be game for a nationwide mea culpa about our problems.
That said, however, what he should take on are the challenges no longer on the horizon, but at our doorstep: the flourishing of Islamist extremism; the collapse of the modern Middle East; the new era of dictators from Moscow to Istanbul to Caracas to Tehran to Cairo and beyond; the simultaneous rise of bad China and the diminishing PRC of growth and opportunity; the slow motion collapse of the European Union and the rise of fringe leaders on the left and right across Europe; the challenge of millions of refugees; the loss of our military readiness and modernization; the needed leadership of the United States. Will he? We’ll be watching, sadly without the president’s apparently undiminished pollyannaish demeanor.
During his tenure in the White House, President Obama invested a lot of political capital and federal funding advancing his education agenda to make schools stronger. “Our schools fail too many,” he announced to the American people during his first inaugural address on January 20, 2009. As President Obama delivers his last State of the Union, I hope he will address the following: how his policies have helped to prepare schools and students to compete in an internationally competitive marketplace; why the new Every Student Succeeds Act reimagines a safe and sane federal role in education; and what his postsecondary agenda did accomplish to make higher education more affordable and more effective. Overall, the Obama education record is mixed on student achievement and making higher education more affordable. At the same time, his advocacy for quality metrics for the evaluation of teachers and the expansion of public school choice should serve as a hallmark legacy.
Dalibor Rohac (as President Obama):
Although the liberal democracies of Europe count among the best friends that the United States has, in the past years the trans-Atlantic partnership has not received the attention it deserves. That needs to change. We will boost the size of our asylum programs in order to ease the pressure that the influx of refugees has had on our European allies. Through NATO, we will strengthen our military presence in Central and Eastern Europe in order to demonstrate our resolve to defend our allies if necessary. As authorized by the Congress in November, the administration will provide lethal aid to Ukraine. Finally, we will redouble our efforts to conclude a major trade and investment agreement with the European Union, ushering a new era of prosperity in the Atlantic space.
If the president were serious, he would announce that both the size of the military and its budget are too small for the Defense Department to safely and effectively meet the country’s security requirements. In doing so, he could point to the unanimous findings of the bipartisan 2014 National Defense Panel for support, but would have to admit — if only implicitly — that his policy of global retrenchment has led to greater strategic uncertainty than in any time in recent memory. Failing that, Obama’s tenure in office when it comes to foreign and defense affairs will continue to make Jimmy Carter’s very flawed presidency look Churchillian in comparison.
Learn more about the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies
President Obama will probably tout the Trans-Pacific Partnership at the State of the Union, when he should renegotiate it. The TPP is not a sound free trade agreement and could harm the US in the future by unnecessarily curbing global competition and private property rights. The US should better its offer on shipping, sugar, and textiles (at least) and ask for more from its partners on services and state-owned enterprises. The conclusion of the TPP talks looked rushed, as if the goal were to win final passage before the end of the President’s term. Now we are offered a bad choice of take it or leave it. But the TPP should be improved, and if not by this President, then by the next.
When he was running for president, Obama promised to embrace bipartisanship and end the polarizing politics of America. This still hasn’t happened by the eve of his seventh and final State of the Union. Political polarization, which severely hinders legislation and policy-making, has become one of the most pressing issues for President Obama, who is the leader of the union and — I can’t stress this enough — not the leader of his own party. In this SOTU address, I would like to hear President Obama discuss the policy arenas where he will push forward real bipartisan efforts in the last year of his administration. I would of course like to see him keep his word this time around, so that he won’t leave behind a union that’s even more divided than what he started with.
Hope springs eternal, as Alexander Pope noted, but he never endured seven years of Barack Obama’s version of Leninism: Any action that advances his goals is justified. But the last State of the Union address of his presidency looms, and one hopes against all reason that the president will say the following words:
I have exceeded the actual powers vested in my presidency, particularly in terms of the faithful execution of the laws. This has corroded the separation of powers and the distinction between legislative and executive functions. The result has been increasing bitterness, a polarization of the body politic, and a danger that my successor will move the nation even further down this destructive path. And so I am announcing tonight that I will limit my actions over the next year to those authorized explicitly by Congress. As I began my presidency on a platform of hope, so do I intend to end it similarly.
That truly would be grand, and presidential. Alas, it is not the way to bet.
President Barack Obama smiles at the end of his first primetime address to Congress, February 24, 2009. Reuters.
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