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| Obama's State of the Union: Heavy on promises, mixed record on results - Fox News Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:48 AM PST  FILE:Jan. 23, 2014: President Obama in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C.AP President Obama will announce a host of proposals to reshape America in his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday. But if past is prologue, only a handful of them will come close to execution. From repeated calls to lower the corporate tax rate to last year's declaration that the "time has come" to pass immigration reform, Obama's State of the Union vows frequently have either run into congressional gridlock or been drowned out by other priorities. This year's laundry list of promises is expected to focus on addressing "income inequality" and other economic issues. Obama will try to forge ahead with a few holdovers while quietly dropping several initiatives touted in his 2013 speech. One item prominent in last year's address, which came on the heels of the Newtown school shooting, was a pitch for tighter gun control. Though Obama may revisit it in Tuesday's address, the push largely has been dropped after an intense but ultimately failed effort to get legislation passed on Capitol Hill. Tax and entitlement reform also were big agenda items in last year's State of the Union address, but have lately fallen by the wayside -- considering White House officials who spent the weekend previewing the address did not mention them as a priority. Obama, instead, will for the third straight year make the major theme of his address economic opportunity and bridging the income inequality gap for the poor and middle class. However, he appears likely to make a subtle shift, focusing more on worker protections and job training than job creation. The White House says Obama will announce that he will sign an executive order increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 for new federal contracts. The initiative dovetails with Obama's broader call for an increase to the federal minimum wage, something he also touched on last year. "Let's declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour," the president said to applause in his 2013 address. However, the White House is now backing a congressional Democratic plan to increase the federal wage to $10.10 over three years, then indexing it to inflation. Senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer told "Fox News Sunday" that Obama will try to "restore opportunity" through a series of proposals including ones on job training, education and manufacturing. He also pointed out that Obama's effort to create 15 manufacturing hubs across the country has had some success, despite Congress rejecting his proposal, and remains a work in progress -- with four complete, two in place and two "in the pipeline." Amid the apparent shift, Oklahoma GOP Rep. James Lankford is questioning whether Obama really intended to follows through on all of his 2013 plans. "I don't think he ever intended to achieve tax and entitlement reform," Lankford, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, told FoxNews.com on Monday. "That was pure rhetoric. The shift is really from Americans saying, 'This is a nice guy but we don't think he can lead.' He's lost their trust." His comments follows Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz saying Sunday that the president's existing economic policies are "not working" and "exacerbating" income equality. Cruz, whose effort last year to defund ObamaCare fueled a partial government shutdown, is also calling on the president to announce new investigations into the fatal Benghazi attacks and the IRS scandal and to admit his economic program has failed -- and that passing ObamaCare on a party-line vote was a mistake. "I would expect ... he would call for some accountability now [on Benghazi], that he would join me and 24 other senators who have called for a joint select committee to get some answers," Cruz told Fox News on Monday. The president is also expected to renew his push for free pre-kindergarten for 4-year-olds and comprehensive immigration reform, which if passed would almost certainly become a hallmark of his presidency. Both those initiatives were also featured in Obama's 2013 address. The Democrat-controlled Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill last summer. But the Republican-controlled House has not, largely because the chamber's conservative wing has so far argued that granting citizenship to some of the country's 11 million illegal immigrants is tantamount to "amnesty." House leaders reportedly will release a broad plan this week, but the White House has reserved comment until it is made public. "We think it is progress that the Republicans are going to put something forward," Pfeiffer also told "Fox News Sunday." "Let's see what they put forward and hopefully we can come together and make progress." |
| US Republican leaders to outline immigration framework - Boehner - Reuters Posted: 28 Jan 2014 08:36 AM PST  Photographers take pictures of U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) (R) as he appears before reporters after a Republican caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, October 15, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Reuters) - U.S. House Republican leaders will outline their principles for immigration reform at a party meeting this week, House Speaker John Boehner said on Tuesday. Immigration reform advocates, who saw their hopes dashed in 2013 for major legislation, have been waiting for the House Republican leadership to take such a step. Boehner did not give any details of the principles, nor did he promise specific legislative action in the near term. "We're going to outline our standards, principles of immigration reform and have a conversation with members," Boehner told a news conference after a party meeting near the U.S. Capitol. "Once we talk to our members, we'll have more to say about how we move forward," Boehner said. Boehner told his rank-and-file party members earlier this month that the party leaders were getting ready to lay out a framework for immigration reform. But 2013 began on a similarly upbeat note after President Barack Obama cruised to re-election the previous November with the support of more than 70 percent of Hispanic voters, who have been clamoring for immigration reform. The Democratic-run Senate last June passed a sweeping immigration bill that would give millions of undocumented immigrants a pathway to U.S. citizenship. The legislation has languished in the House, where Republicans have the majority. Senior Republican aides have said that the House does not plan to pass a comprehensive bill like the Senate did. Instead, House Republicans will approach the subject "step by step," they say. They have said the immigration reform framework could discuss the need for better U.S. border controls and beefing up interior security so that companies cannot easily hire undocumented workers. Perhaps the most challenging principle to be addressed is what to do about the 11 million immigrants already in the United States illegally, many brought here as children. And while Republicans are interested in getting more votes from Latinos, some Republicans fear that raising the controversial issue in a mid-term congressional election year could put unnecessary strains on the party. (Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Andrew Hay) |
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