Obama to appeal for revived health care support
Jennifer LovenHoping to rescue his prized health care overhaul and revive his presidency as well, Barack Obama appealed in his State of the Union address for support for the plan that is in severe danger in Congress, urging dispirited Democrats not to abandon the effort.
"By the time I'm finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance," Obama said, according to excerpts of the Wednesday night address released in advance by the White House. "Patients will be denied the care they need. Small business owners will continue to drop coverage altogether. I will not walk away from these Americans. And neither should the people in this chamber."
Promising to tackle the economic worries foremost on Americans' minds and become the transformative leader they thought they voted for, Obama called on Democrats and Republicans to "overcome the numbing weight of our politics" and agree on solutions to the nation's problems.
"We face a deficit of trust — deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years," he said.
Obama was looking to change the conversation from how his presidency is stalling — over the messy health care debate, a limping economy and the missteps that led to Christmas Day's barely averted terrorist disaster — to how he is seizing the reins.
In his speech, the president is devoting about two-thirds of his time to the economy, emphasizing his ideas, some new but mostly old and explained anew, for restoring job growth, taming budget deficits and changing Washington's ways. These concerns are at the roots of voter emotions that drove supporters to Obama but now are turning on him as he governs.
Indicating he understands Americans' struggles to pay bills while big banks get bailouts and bonuses, Obama is prodding Congress to enact a second stimulus package and to provide new financial relief for the middle class.
Acknowledging frustration at the government's habit of spending more than it has, he is seeking a three-year freeze on some domestic spending (while proposing a 6.2 percent, or $4 billion, increase in the popular arena of education and supporting the debt-financed jobs bill) and is announcing he is creating a bipartisan deficit-reduction task force.
"Let's try common sense," Obama said in the speech excerpts. "Let's invest in our people without leaving them a mountain of debt."
Positioning himself as a fighter for the regular guy and a different kind of leader, he urged Congress to require lobbyists to disclose all contacts with lawmakers or members of his administration and to blunt the impact of last week's Supreme Court decision allowing corporations greater flexibility in supporting or opposing candidates.
"I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities," he said.