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By Li Ying US President Barack Obama was set to give his annual State of the Union address last night, Eastern Standard Time, after Republicans warned that they would reject his calls for increased spending on education, research and infrastructure. Faced with a $1.3 trillion budget deficit and federal debt reaching a statutory limit of $14.3 trillion by March 31, Obama is expected to focus on jobs and tackling the US deficit, according to Reuters. Most Democrats are in favor of increasing taxes on wealthier Americans to help offset increased spending on education, research and infrastructure, but Republicans plan to redouble their calls for spending cuts. Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor scoffed Tuesday at the notion that Washington was an engine of "innovation" and said "everything is on the table" when comes the time to slash government spending, AFP reported. Jin Canrong, vice director of the School of International Studies at the Renmin University of China, said that with the rapid rise in public spending and very little positive impact on the employment rate, it will be very difficult for Obama to tackle the US' economic problems in the near future. "After declaring job creation as his No. 1 focus in his first State of the Union address last year, Obama has been accused of spending most of his time on other priorities," Jin said. "While the economy figure is getting better, other than CEOs, most citizens are not benefiting from it." Jin also thinks that besides striving to solve economic problems, another crucial mission for Obama is to maintain what he has achieved, such as healthcare reform. While the White House has been quiet about the State of the Union's healthcare details, it has been signaling that the speech will be about big themes rather than getting into the nuts and bolts of the healthcare law or anything else, according to Politico, an American political journalism organization. "The new medical law has already been helping average Americans, and repealing it would take important protections away from them," Jin told the Global Times. Agencies contributed to this story |
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