Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

President: Innovate to create jobs,
'win the future'

Obama says it will take bold U.S. actions to maintain economic leadership in the face of global competition.

By ANNE E. KORNBLUT and SCOTT WILSON The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — President Obama sought to rouse the nation from complacency in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, urging innovation and budget reforms that he said are vital to keeping the United States a leader in an increasingly competitive world.

click image to enlarge

President Obama delivers his State of the Union address Tuesday night in the House chamber, saying “this is our generation’s Sputnik moment” for meeting a challenge. Behind him are Vice President Joe Biden, left, and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The Associated Press

click image to enlarge

Laurel Bezanson of South Portland and Carolyn Vetro of Portland clap during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address. They watched at Ri Ra Irish Pub in Portland.

Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Additional Photos Below

Related headlines

• Analysis: Obama speech puts GOP on the defensive
• Republicans urge Obama to cut spending

Select images available for purchase in the
Maine Today Photo Store

Speech strikes right note with Maine Democrats

PORTLAND — At a bar on Portland’s waterfront, the president’s State of the Union address took on the air of a Super Bowl party as more than 40 people gathered to watch the speech on a wide-screen television.

The crowd in the upstairs lounge of the Ri Ra Irish Pub and Restaurant on Commercial Street booed when the president introduced the Republican speaker of the House, John Boehner of Ohio, and cheered when Obama announced that 80 percent of the country’s energy would come from clean energy sources by 2035.

By the end of his hour-long speech, most people in the crowd were applauding.

“He was very positive and very upbeat in getting back to the basics about what made this country strong. I don’t think anyone could find a lot of fault with what he said,” said Janet Boone, a director at Sappi Fine Paper in South Portland. “I’m very pleased.”

Tuesday night’s watch party in Portland was one of seven parties held across Maine by Organizing For America, a volunteer organization that holds such events to strengthen the Democratic Party.

After watching the president’s speech, Laurel Bezanson, a breast cancer survivor from South Portland, said, “it was wonderful.”

“To me, the president is just a class act. He’s so bright and so visionary,” Bezanson said.
She also watched Boehner’s expressions – he was on camera throughout the speech – very closely. “It was like he stuck a golf ball in his mouth,” Bezanson said.

After the address, Andrew Kain, who helped organize the watch party, said the president met his expectations by trying to find common ground to solve the nation’s problems.

“We are hoping to usher in a new era of civility,” Kain said just minutes before the speech began.

“I really appreciated his comments about health care. We should fix the problems and move forward,” said Jill Barkley, the new chairwoman of Portland’s Democratic City Committee.

In Washington, members of Maine’s congressional delegation responded to the State of the Union address. Their staffs released statements late Tuesday.

“I agree with the president that we need to continue to work toward having a more civil tone to the debate,” said Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree, who sat with Republican and Democratic members of the House’s softball team.

“We need to find ways to move this country forward and not get bogged down in partisan debates of the past. I think the president’s speech was an example of that,” Pingree said.

Democratic Rep. Mike Michaud said he thought the president struck the right tone.

“I strongly agree with him that we have to make improving our economy and creating jobs our top priority. Too many Mainers continue to struggle to make ends meet, and they expect real action to boost our small business and manufacturers,” Michaud said.

Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe commended the president for focusing “like a laser” on grappling with the burgeoning national debt and creating an environment for economic growth and job creation.

“It is imperative that Republicans and Democrats alike coalesce around an agenda that recalibrates government’s emphasis toward pro-private sector, pro-growth and fiscally sustainable policies that reignite America’s legendary can-do spirit,” Snowe said.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins agreed with the president that the top priority of the administration and Congress must be private-sector job growth.

“Everywhere I travel in Maine, whether I’m talking to a machine shop owner, a trucking company operator, a small residential contractor, or other employers, I hear the same refrain: 'Given the economic policies and regulations coming out of Washington, we don’t dare create any jobs, buy new equipment, or take any risks to grow our business,’” Collins said.

– Staff Writer Dennis Hoey

"Sustaining the American dream has never been about standing pat," Obama said. "It has required each generation to sacrifice, and struggle, and meet the demands of a new age."

Obama repeatedly declared the imperative to "win the future," comparing the current need for innovation to the space race against the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. Calling for more dedication to research and technology as he raised the specter of a rapidly growing China and India, Obama declared: "This is our generation's Sputnik moment."

Coming less than three months after his party's defeat in the midterm elections, Obama struck notes of optimism and conciliation. He spoke to a House chamber where traditionally segregated Republicans and Democrats mingled, and acknowledged the unusual seating arrangement at the outset of his speech. But, Obama said: "What comes of this moment will be determined not by whether we can sit together tonight, but whether we can work together tomorrow."

Facing steep budget deficits, Obama did not call for massive new programs, instead proposing a five-year freeze in most discretionary spending and tens of billions of dollars in defense cuts even as the country fights two wars. Those and other budgetary proposals, outlined previously by Obama and his advisers, were designed to give the president the upper hand in a debate over spending and the broader role of government that is likely to define the legislative year ahead and the presidential election to come.

But Obama also used the prime-time stage to blend a number of policy proposals into a blueprint for how he intends to confront growing threats to U.S. economic dominance. While he has emphasized innovation in his travels to battery factories and solar panel plants over the past year, he has never done so as explicitly as he did Tuesday before a national audience, and after a year when the unemployment rate remained stubbornly stuck above 9 percent.

He sought to sway his audience with rhetoric rather than voluminous specifics. He declared the country "poised for progress" with the stock markets and corporate profits on the rebound. Acknowledging the agony of workers who have seen jobs sent overseas, he admitted the "rules have changed" -- and must be reckoned with through innovation and education.

"Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik, we had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon. The science wasn't there yet. NASA didn't even exist," he said. "But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs."

Obama's proposals – some of them left over from last year's State of the Union address – ranged from increasing math and science teacher training to investing more in developing clean-energy technology. Behind his words loomed the rising economies of Asia that present both promising new markets for American exports and sharper competition to U.S. industry in areas where the economy is likely to grow most in the coming decades.

Obama did not call for new gun legislation, as some expected he might in the wake of deadly shootings in Tucson less than three weeks earlier. Instead he referred to the massacre, which left six dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., severely wounded, as an incident that gave the nation pause because it "reminded us that no matter who we are or where we come from, each of us is a part of something greater – something more consequential than party or political preference."

He defended his health care overhaul, inviting detractors to help him move forward with essential fixes to the law. He said he would accept minor corrections to "flaws" in the law, but he drew a bright line against broader changes favored by Republicans, saying "what I'm not willing to do is go back to the days when insurance companies could deny someone coverage because of a pre-existing condition."

Referring to the passage of the repeal for "don't ask, don't tell" – the military's ban on openly gay service members – Obama called on universities to allow military recruiters on college campuses. "It is time to leave behind the divisive battles of the past. It is time to move forward as one nation," he said.

Addressing a Republican-controlled House for the first time, Obama touched on ideas with bipartisan appeal, from medical malpractice reform to deficit reduction. He promised to veto any bill that arrives on his desk with pet projects destined for lawmakers' districts, known as earmarks. His overarching theme – of a plan to "win the future," a phrase he used nearly a dozen times – had patriotic underpinnings, part of his effort to reach a broad swath of the electorate and strike a balance between sounding too rosy and too alarmed about America's standing in the world.

In delivering a State of the Union focused largely on the economy, Obama found himself recycling themes that have cropped up repeatedly during his time in office.

His five-year spending freeze proposal marked a modest extension of his earlier proposal to halt spending for three years.

When Obama raised a proposal to save $78 billion in defense spending, it was one with a familiar ring: It had already been given a full public airing by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

And Obama talked about the pressing need to create jobs, just as he did the year before when he declared that "jobs must be our number one focus in 2010."

Yet the demands were presented against a dramatically different political backdrop, after a succession of major accomplishments during his last year, as well as defeats.

In calling on Congress to work with him to rein in the budget deficit, Obama acknowledged the deep spending cuts that Republicans have already proposed, although many of them remain unspecified. He said he was "willing to eliminate whatever we can honestly afford to do without."

"But let's make sure that we're not doing it on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens," Obama said. "And let's make sure what we're cutting is really excess weight. Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine."