PRESIDENT BARACK Obama has signalled the most ambitious expansion in decades of the role of government in American society, promising sweeping new initiatives on healthcare, education and energy along with a plan to turn around the economy.
In a 52-minute address to the joint houses of Congress that was interrupted for applause more than 60 times, Mr Obama delivered a sober assessment of the ills affecting the United States but vowed that the country would overcome its challenges to regain its economic and technological global leadership.
“While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this,” the president said.
“We will rebuild, we will recover and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”
The speech focused almost exclusively on domestic policy, touching only briefly on foreign policy and on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, Mr Obama linked the United States’s global role with its success in addressing its problems at home.
“As we stand at this crossroads of history, the eyes of all people in all nations are once again upon us, watching to see what we do with this moment, waiting for us to lead,” he said.
Listing the causes of the current economic malaise, the president said that Americans had put off for too long tough decisions on energy, the cost of healthcare and falling education standards.
At the same time, lax financial regulation rewarded irresponsible risk-taking on Wall Street and encouraged homeowners to take on mortgages they could not afford.
“People bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day,” he said.
“Well that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.”
Mr Obama defended his $787 billion economic recovery plan, which he claimed would save or create 3.5 million jobs, but added that the government must spend much more to get credit flowing again if the country is to emerge from recession.
“I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions. I promise you – I get it,” he said.
“But I also know that in a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger, or yield to the politics of the moment.
“My job – our job – is to solve the problem. Our job is to govern with a sense of responsibility. I will not spend a single penny for the purpose of rewarding a single Wall Street executive, but I will do whatever it takes to help the small business that can’t pay its workers or the family that has saved and still can’t get a mortgage.”
In a dramatic departure from the Bush administration’s approach to climate change, the president called for legislation that would impose a cap on carbon emissions and a $15 billion investment in alternative energy sources.
He said that his first budget, to be outlined today, will include “an historic commitment to comprehensive healthcare reform – a downpayment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable healthcare for every American”.
He promised to reform the country’s schools, rewarding teachers on performance and to expand access to third-level education.
Mr Obama insisted, however, that new spending programmes would go hand in hand with major savings aimed at cutting the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term.
He also pledged to abolish the Bush administration’s tax cuts for the richest Americans and, in a move that could inhibit US investment in Ireland, he promised to end tax breaks for companies that create jobs abroad.
“We will end education programmes that don’t work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don’t need them.
“We’ll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defence budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use,” he said.
“We will root out the waste, fraud and abuse in our Medicare programme that doesn’t make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.”
The president yesterday named former Washington governor Gary Locke as commerce secretary – his third nominee for the post.
New Mexico governor Bill Richardson withdrew because of an alleged corruption scandal and Republican senator Judd Gregg stepped aside because of policy differences with Mr Obama’s administration.
“I’m sure it’s not lost on anyone that we’ve tried this a couple of times. But I’m a big believer in keeping at something until you get it right,” the president said.