State of the Union Live Blog 02/12/2013
Follow along as President Barack Obama delivers his 2013 State of the Union address
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Welcome to U.S. News & World Report's live blog of President Barack Obama's State of the Union.
Pledging to revive a "rising, thriving middle class," Obama will promise Tuesday to create solid new jobs without raising the federal deficit. He's calling for a "smarter government" but not a bigger one. You can read more about his comments here.
Afterwards, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio plans to say in his response that he hopes the president would "abandon his obsession with raising taxes" and pursue policies that would foster economic growth and help middle-class families achieve prosperity. You can read more here. -
Obama delivering #SOTU at a time when 81% of Americans see strong partisan conflict in nation pewrsr.ch/13jZwXe twitter.com/pewresearch/st…
— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) February 13, 2013 -
Dozens of members of Congress as well as guests for the State of the Union wore green and silver ribbons on their lapels to remember the victims of gun violence.
Rhode Island Rep. Jim Langevin, a survivor of an accidental gunshot that left him paralyzed, spearheaded an effort to get members of Congress to give one of their tickets to a victim of gun violence. The ribbons were sent by residents of Newtown, Conn., the site of the elementary school shooting that left 20 children dead in December. The ribbons are Sandy Hook Elementary School colors.
Participating members include:
Jim Langevin (RI-2)
Keith Ellison (MN-5)
Carolyn McCarthy (NY-4)
Rosa DeLauro (CT-3)
David Cicilline (RI-1)
Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Leader
Ron Barber (AZ-2)
Susan Davis (CA-53)
Diana DeGette (CO-1)
Tammy Duckworth (IL-8)
Elizabeth Esty (CT-5)
Lois Frankel (FL-22)
Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM-1)
Janice Hahn (CA-44)
Jim Himes (CT-4)
John Larson (CT-1)
Alan Lowenthal (CA-47)
Ed Markey (MA-7)
Jim Moran (VA-8)
Gloria Negrete-McLeod (CA-35)
Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC)
Ed Perlmutter (CO-7)
Jan Schakowsky (IL-9)
Brad Schneider (IL-10)
Bobby Scott (VA-3)
Mike Thompson (CA-5)
John Tierney (MA-06)
Krysten Sinema (AZ-9)
Chris Van Hollen (MD-8)
Juan Vargas (CA-51)
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (FL-23)
Rep. Steny Hoyer (MD-5)
Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA-8) -
Hacktivist group Anonymous is threatening to shut down the State of the Union -- at least on the Internet. In a post on Anonrelations.net, Anonymous wrote Tuesday that they would prevent the speech from being shown online in protest of the National Defense Authorization Act, as well as the recent suicide of Aaron Swartz, a computer programmer and Internet activist who had been arrested and accused of hacking academic journals at MIT. Anonymous is using the hashtag #opSOTU to rally people around a "virtual blockade" of the speech.
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[The President] shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient...
--U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 3 -
Cruz, one of three senators to vote against Kerry, is waved over by Secretary of State and shakes his hand #SOTU
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 13, 2013 -
Settle into your seats: embargoed copy of Obama's #SOTU speech comes in at 6,419 words - a decent-sized book chapter
— Toby Harnden (@tobyharnden) February 13, 2013 -
Lee Tien of @eff says Obama "clearly trying very hard" to reach out to #privacy advocates with #cybersecurity executive order #SOTU
— Jason Koebler (@jason_koebler) February 13, 2013 -
At least a dozen lawmakers will sit with a member from the other side of the aisle tonight, a "date night" practice that began two years ago as a show of bipartisanship after the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
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For those asking, the word "I" appears in embargoed #SOTU speech 31 times (+ 3 x "me" and 110 x "we")
— Toby Harnden (@tobyharnden) February 13, 2013 -
As President Barack Obama entered the chamber, rock musician and gun rights provocateur Ted Nugent didn't clap.
Nugent, who previously said he would "either be dead or in jail” if Obama was reelected, is the guest of Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman. -
President Obama: “Tonight, thanks to the grit and determination of the American people, there is much progress to report.” #SOTU
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 13, 2013 -
The president said in his speech that U.S. employers have added 6 million new jobs since the worst of the recession, but that doesn’t necessarily mean 6 million fewer unemployed Americans.
As of January, there were around 12.3 million unemployed Americans, around 3 million fewer than at the end of 2009, when unemployment was at its worst, according to Labor Department numbers.
Since that time, however, Americans have also dropped out of the labor force, meaning that they are either not working or not looking for work.
The labor force participation rate is now 63.6 percent, down from well over 66 percent pre-recession. As the unemployment rate is calculated as a fraction of the labor force, less participation can mean a lower jobless rate. That rate is now 7.9 percent, down from 10 percent in late 2009. -
The opening of Obama's speech is more optimistic than any previous State of the Union address. He's aided by not having to downplay any success ahead of an election with a still struggling economy.
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Bobak Ferdowsi, flight director, Mars Curiosity Rover, arrives as a guest of first lady Michelle Obama for President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. (AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
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The glamorous scene where the WH press pool is watching tonight's SOTU address twitter.com/jbendery/statu…
— jennifer bendery (@jbendery) February 13, 2013 -
As Obama mentions sequester, important to remember he's been playing politics on the issue for weeks.
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From left, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. sit on Capitol Hill in Washington before President Barack Obama's State of the Union address during a joint session of Congress. (AP/Charles Dharapak)
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The president in his prepared remarks advocated raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour. That's a significant bump from the current level, $7.25 per hour, but still means relatively small earnings. For someone working 40 hours a week, $9 per hour translates to around $18,700 per year in income.
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Obama says one of his Medicare reforms would be to "reduce taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies," but his administration cut deals with those same companies to preserve their profit margins to keep them from lobbying against his health care reform act in 2009.
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Obama says that defense sequester is a ”bad idea.”
During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter warned that if automatic budget cuts were to be enacted on March 1, the Pentagon would be forced to find $46 billion in automatic cuts over seven months.
The cuts would make it so that maintenance on ships and aircraft would be postponed, civilian employees would face more than 20 furlough days and hiring freezes.
"This whole thing is dumb," said independent Maine Sen. Angus King during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday. "This is a totally self-imposed disaster that we don't have to do." -
President Barack Obama, flanked by Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner, gestures as he gives his State of the Union address during a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP/Charles Dharapak)
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Anticipating a similar critique from Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who is delivering the Republican response to the speech, Obama says, "It's not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government that sets priorities and invests in broad-based growth."
Rubio, during his Republican National Convention speech, repeatedly accused Obama of promoting bigger government as the solution to all the country's ills. -
Obama pointed to the 500,000 jobs that manufacturing has added since the downturn as a sign of progress. Put into context, that's a small bite out of a big problem.
The industry had over 19 million workers at its peak in the late 1970s. By 2000, it was around 17 million. Currently, it's nearly 12 million, indicating an industry whose decline has deeper causes than the recent recession. -
"If Congress won't act soon" on climate change, "I will." Obama #SOTU
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) February 13, 2013 -
When Obama says "we must do more to combat climate change," House Speaker John Boehner doesn't stand.
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Obama is right; broad consensus in scientific community on climate change. Our previous fact-check: ow.ly/hFgAC #SOTU
— PolitiFact (@politifact) February 13, 2013 -
Obama calls out members of Congress who may voice opposition to infrastructure spending while in Washington, D.C., but who appreciate the spending in their districts.
"I know you want these job-creating projects in your districts. I've seen you all at the ribbon cuttings." -
President Obama proposed a "Fix-it-First" program for infrastructure projects, like repairing bridges. By some estimates, infrastructure spending can be an effective economic boost.
A 2012 San Francisco Fed paper found that "each dollar of federal highway grants received by a state raises that state’s annual economic output by at least two dollars, a relatively large multiplier." -
"Home prices are rising at the fastest rate in six years" actually means that finally they're not falling. #SOTU
— Justin Wolfers (@justinwolfers) February 13, 2013 -
There have been lots of comments on the tinted glasses Vice President Joe Biden is wearing tonight. Let the GIFs begin:
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Longest #sotu in minutes, Clinton again, but this time in 2000--took longer to say fewer words than '95 t.usnews.com/bD638 via @usnews
— Robert Schlesinger (@rschles) February 13, 2013 -
President Obama says climate change can't be proven with any single event, but recent research has shown that there are more (and more powerful) hurricanes during abnormally warm years.
The author of that study, Aslack Grinsted of the University of Copenhagen, says his study "shows that there's a good chance these hurricanes wouldn't be happening without warming." -
Obama said that he supported a “responsible pathway to earned citizenship.”
The president called for undocumented immigrants to have to pass a background check, pay taxes and get in line behind individuals who came to the U.S. legally. His plan is consistent with a framework Republican and Democratic senators outlined that would secure the border, while providing a path to citizenship for the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants. -
Obama, calling for comprehensive immigration reform, echoes a speech he gave last month in Las Vegas.
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Obama's call to raise the minimum wage will be met with resistance from the business community.
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Earlier Tuesday, President Obama signed a cyber security executive order that will allow government agencies to provide classified data pertaining to "cyber threats" to companies providing "critical infrastructure" to the country.
The order includes some of the same things included in last year's controversial CISPA bill, but does not allow companies to share private information with the federal government.
Some experts say the order could get the ball rolling on CISPA 2.0, but for now, privacy organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (which was vehemently anti-CISPA) seem placated. Says EFF senior attorney Lee Tien: The administration is "clearly trying very hard" to reach out to the privacy community. Read more here. -
When Romney came out for indexing min wage to cost of living, many econ conservs derided him for it...
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) February 13, 2013 -
Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York is nodding emphatically to almost all of President Obama's economic proposals:
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President Obama advocated for pay equity for men and women in his speech. By one measure, full-time working women make around 77 cents for every dollar that full-time working men make in the U.S., though other estimates put the figure slightly higher.
According to a recent study from the American Association of University Women, the gap is smaller yet when a variety of factors are accounted for. Still, the study found that women one year out of college earned 6.6 percent less than men one year out earned in 2009, even when controlling for factors like hours worked, marital status, geography, and occupation. -
According to an AP poll, 4 out of 5 Americans think temperatures are rising and global warming will be a serious problem for the U.S. #sotu
— U.S. News (@usnews) February 12, 2013 -
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee points out that Obama ad libbed to his prepared text when talking about cuts to education and medicare.
The line he added: "Why is that deficit reduction is a big emergency justifying cuts in Social Security benefits, but not closing some loopholes?" -
The Huffington Post captured this photo of several female lawmakers refusing to clap during Obama's equal pay line:
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Obama did not mention his administration’s drone program by name, but alludes to the administration’s counter terrorism tactics in State of the Union.
Lawmakers have expressed grave concerns about a checks and balances system for the administration’s drone program. Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden expressed his reservations during a confirmation hearing for Obama CIA Director nominee John Brennan.
“Every American has the right to know when their government believes it's allowed to kill them," Wyden said
Obama promised to be more open.
“We will continue to engage with Congress to ensure not only that our targeting detention, and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and systems of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.” -
Obama says he will be more transparent when it comes to "targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorists."
Last week, his nominee for head of the CIA, John Brennan, received a bipartisan grilling from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee for concerns they had about secret, targeted killings of suspected terrorists.
