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WASHINGON — President Obama called Tuesday for a sustained effort to revive a “rising, thriving middle class,” pledging to fight for a higher minimum wage, more government investment in schools and clean energy, and deficit reduction achieved through spending cuts and tax increases.
WASHINGTON — President Obama, seeking to put the prosperity and promise of the middle class at the heart of his second-term agenda, called on Congress on Tuesday night to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour, saying that would lift millions out of poverty and energize the economy.
In his first State of the Union address since winning re-election, Mr. Obama offered an expansive second-term agenda focused heavily on the economy and jobs, according to summaries of his proposals provided to reporters in advance of the speech. He also proposed new reductions in nuclear weapons, announced that the United States would enter into negotiations for a free trade agreement with the European Union, and promised a speedy withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
In an assertive State of the Union address that fleshed out the populist themes of his inauguration speech, Mr. Obama declared it was “our generation’s task” to “reignite the true engine of America’s economic growth — a rising, thriving middle class.”
“It is our unfinished task to make sure that this government works on behalf of the many and not just the few,” Mr. Obama said, according to a copy of his remarks released ahead of the hourlong speech. “That it encourages free enterprise, rewards individual initiative, and opens the doors of opportunity to every child across this great nation of ours.”
“Every day,” he said, “we should ask ourselves three questions as a nation: How do we attract more jobs to our shores? How do we equip our people with the skills to get those jobs? And how do we make sure that hard work leads to a decent living?”
After delivering an assertive defense of liberal values in his second Inaugural Address last month, on Tuesday Mr. Obama detailed his vision for how to achieve those goals through a federal government that is actively engaged in the well-being of all Americans.
The increase in the minimum wage, from $7.25 an hour now, was the most tangible of a raft of initiatives laid out by the president, from education and energy to public works projects. Taken together, Mr. Obama said, these investments would accelerate the nation’s recovery by helping those in the broad middle class.
He credited the “grit and determination” of the American people for helping turn the economy around, saying that “we have cleared away the rubble of crisis, and can say with renewed confidence that the state of our union is stronger.”
Raising the minimum wage holds particular political appeal for younger Americans, struggling workers and labor groups, all of which were important to Mr. Obama’s re-election. His proposal drew one of the loudest ovations of the evening from Democrats in the House chamber.
The president argued for aggressive federal efforts to lift as many as 15 million people out of poverty by raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour from $7.25 an hour by the end of 2015. He also pushed for new investments in preschool programs as well as math and science education and community colleges to equip workers with new skills.
Speaking to a divided Congress, with many Republicans still smarting from his November victory, Mr. Obama declared, “Together, we have cleared away the rubble of crisis, and we can say with renewed confidence that the state of our union is stronger.”
“Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty,” Mr. Obama said. “This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families. It could mean the difference between groceries or the food bank, rent or eviction, scraping by or finally getting ahead.”
He urged lawmakers to act on immigration, climate change, budget negotiations, and, above all, on gun violence, delivering an emotional appeal for stricter controls that drew on recent tragedies like the schoolhouse massacre in Newtown, Conn.
Despite raising the hopes of environmental activists in his Inaugural Address by calling for a robust effort to fight climate change, Mr. Obama did not call for a cap on carbon emissions on Tuesday. Instead, he pledged to increase the fuel efficiency of vehicles, double the use of renewable electricity generation and create a new energy security trust that would use oil and gas revenue from federal lands to finance clean energy research.
“They deserve a vote,” Mr. Obama declared over and over, gesturing to victims of various shootings, who were scattered through the audience.
Immigration advocates had similar expectations about plans to overhaul the immigration system. Mr. Obama has said he favors changes that would eventually allow 11 million illegal immigrants to earn a path to citizenship, which he mentioned in the speech.
Mr. Obama took the podium after a rousing welcome from lawmakers and other dignitaries. But millions of TV viewers, not to mention people glancing at their smartphones inside the chamber, were distracted by a manhunt across the country, where the police in California were tracking a suspect in the killing of officers and others.
The president also urged Congress to approve a $50 billion “Fix It First” program of infrastructure improvements intended to repair and rebuild the roads, bridges and rail lines that are in the worst shape.
News coverage concentrated on the search almost up to the point the president entered the chamber, and immediately after he finished, networks cut away to continue reporting on the events in California.
Mr. Obama, mindful of the debate over government spending, acknowledged that his agenda would cost money, but he said his proposals would not increase the deficit by “one single dime” because the federal budget would remain below caps that both parties agreed to during negotiations in 2011.
Republicans quickly rejected Mr. Obama’s activist approach, saying it would inevitably translate into higher taxes and an overweening government role, strangling economic growth and deepening the nation’s fiscal hole.
“It’s not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government that sets priorities and invests in broad-based growth,” Mr. Obama said.
Still, in selecting Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American from Florida, to deliver their party’s official rebuttal, Republicans implicitly acknowledged the damage they had suffered at the polls from their hard line stance on immigration. Mr. Rubio, one of the party’s rising stars, favors overhauling immigration laws.
The president said he remained committed to reducing the budget deficit, but warned Republicans that he would support only what he called “balanced” efforts that included both spending cuts and tax increases, including the closing of tax loopholes for the wealthiest Americans and corporations.
On Tuesday, he complained that Mr. Obama’s “solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more, and spend more.”
He made it clear that he believed that Washington had already reduced the deficit by $2.5 trillion over a decade, using a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. That is more than halfway toward the $4 trillion goal that he and some Republicans have set. He urged lawmakers to put off the automatic cuts to military and domestic spending to avoid a new economic slump.
In a speech dominated by domestic issues, Mr. Obama admonished North Korea a day after it tested a nuclear weapon. He warned the country’s reclusive government that it faced further isolation, swift retaliation and a United States bent on improving its own missile defense systems.
Mr. Obama faces stiff opposition from the Republicans who control the House and who have repeatedly blocked some of his top legislative priorities. Republicans began using the Twitter hashtag #NotSerious on Tuesday to describe what they expected Mr. Obama to say in his speech. And the Republican Party unveiled a new Web site to respond to the president’s speech as he gave it.
As new threats erupted, however, old threats were receding, Mr. Obama said. He announced, for example, that 34,000 troops would return home from Afghanistan by this time next year. That withdrawal, representing slightly more than half the current American force, underlined his resolve to quickly wind down the second war of his presidency.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is scheduled to give the Republican response immediately after Mr. Obama’s speech. Mr. Rubio, the son of immigrants from Cuba, is to deliver his short address in both English and Spanish. In excerpts released Tuesday evening, Mr. Rubio accused the president of thinking that free enterprise is “the cause of our problems.”
Mr. Obama did not match the lofty tone of his inauguration speech, but the address was clearly intended to be its workmanlike companion. In place of his ringing call for a more equitable society was a package of proposals that constitute a blueprint for the remainder of his presidency. Some would require legislation; others merely an executive order.
“The tax increases and the deficit spending you propose will hurt middle-class families,” Mr. Rubio will say, according to the excerpts. “It will cost them their raises. It will cost them their benefits. It may even cost some of them their jobs. And it will hurt seniors because it does nothing to save Medicare and Social Security. So Mr. President, I don’t oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich. I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbors.”
Among the proposals was a $1 billion investment to create 15 institutes to develop new manufacturing technologies, building on the success of a pilot project in Youngstown, Ohio. He said he would use oil and gas royalties from federal lands to pay for research in clean energy technology that would wean cars and trucks off oil.
Mr. Obama’s speech — his seventh to a joint session of Congress — was designed to set in motion one of the most intense legislative years in his presidency, with the White House moving to take advantage of his victory last fall. Aides are keenly aware that the momentum will soon fade.
Mr. Obama pledged to work with states to provide high-quality preschool to every child in America. And he recycled a proposal to help homeowners refinance their mortgages.
“He does feel that fierce urgency,” Valerie Jarrett, a senior White House adviser, said on the MSNBC program “Morning Joe” on Tuesday. She said Mr. Obama would use the State of the Union address to put pressure on members of Congress by speaking “directly to the American people about what he wants to do.”
None of these proposals, Mr. Obama said, would add to the deficit, since they were consistent with the budget deal of 18 months ago. “It’s not a bigger government we need,” he said, “but a smarter government that sets priorities and invests in broad-based growth.”
The president delivered his address before a chamber that included victims of gun violence, which is part of an effort by gun control advocates to increase pressure on Congress to enact enhanced background checks and new restrictions on firearms and ammunition.
Mr. Obama also signaled, however, that the era of single-minded deficit-cutting should end. He noted that the recent agreements on taxes and spending reduced the deficit by $2.5 trillion, more than halfway toward the $4 trillion in reductions that economists say would put the nation’s finances on a sustainable course.
Sitting with Michelle Obama in the first lady’s box were the parents of Hadiya Pendleton, the girl who was shot to death in Chicago just days after performing at Mr. Obama’s inauguration. Aides said a teacher from the Newtown, Conn., school where a massacre occurred in December; small-business owners; members of the military; Timothy D. Cook, the chief executive of Apple; and immigration advocates would also be among those sitting with Mrs. Obama.
Mr. Obama spoke darkly of the consequences of a failure to reach a budget deal, which would set off automatic spending cuts on the military and other programs. “These sudden, harsh, arbitrary cuts would jeopardize our military readiness,” he said.
In his speech, Mr. Obama made a strong push for his comprehensive package of legislation aimed at reducing gun violence in the wake of the Newtown shootings.
On climate change, Mr. Obama endorsed the cap-and-trade legislation once championed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and former Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, but long stalled in Congress. Though the president said he would not hesitate to use executive orders to push his own measures to reduce carbon emissions, he did not give any details.
He repeatedly said that whatever members of Congress might think about new gun laws, they should allow their colleagues to vote on the often divisive issue.
In another sign of the election’s lingering shadow, Mr. Obama was creating a bipartisan commission to investigate voting irregularities that led to long lines at polling sites in November. Studies indicate that these lines cost Democrats hundreds of thousands of votes. The commission will be led by the chief counsel of the Obama presidential campaign, Robert Bauer, and a legal adviser to Mitt Romney’s campaign, Ben Ginsberg.
“Gabby Giffords deserves a vote,” Mr. Obama said, referring to Gabrielle Giffords, the former congresswoman who was shot and gravely injured in a 2011 shooting in Tucson. “The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote. The families of Oak Creek and Tucson and Blacksburg and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence — they deserve a simple vote.”
On trade policy, the president said that the United States and the European Union were ready to begin negotiations on a comprehensive trade treaty. That came after a report submitted earlier in the day concluded that the gaps between the two sides were narrow enough to put a deal within reach.
Domestic affairs dominated the speech. But North Korea’s nuclear test early Tuesday highlighted how national security and foreign policy matters may affect the course of Mr. Obama’s presidency.
The most impassioned parts of the speech echoed those that Mr. Obama delivered on the west front of the Capitol three weeks ago.
Aides said the president had planned to mention security concerns about North Korea even before the nuclear test. But Mr. Obama specifically mentioned the nuclear test, calling it a provocative act that would be condemned by the world.
“It is our unfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this country,” he said. “The idea that if you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead, no matter where you come from, what you look like, or who you love.”
“Provocations of the sort we saw last night will only isolate them further, as we stand by our allies, strengthen our own missile defense, and lead the world in taking firm action in response to these threats,” Mr. Obama said.
“It is our unfinished task to make sure that this government works on behalf of the many, and not just the few,” he continued. “That it encourages free enterprise, rewards individual initiative and opens the doors of opportunity to every child across this great nation of ours.”
Mr. Obama renewed his pledge to reduce the world’s nuclear arsenal by promising to shrink the number of nuclear weapons that the United States has deployed.
Children loomed large on Tuesday night. In addition to a teacher from Sandy Hook Elementary School, the guests included the parents of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old high school student whose shooting death in Chicago has become an emblem of the grim toll of gun violence.
And he announced that 34,000 troops will return home from Afghanistan by February 2014, cutting in half the American presence there before continuing further troop withdrawals and handing over complete responsibility for security to the Afghans by the end of next year.
“She was 15 years old,” Mr. Obama said of Ms. Pendleton, in words that briefly transcended the political bromides and policy prescriptions of these speeches. “She loved Fig Newtons and lip gloss. She was a majorette. She was so good to her friends, they all thought they were her best friend.”
“Tonight I can announce that over the next year another 34,000 American troops will come home from Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama said. “This drawdown will continue. And by the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over.”
In the wake of tough questions for John O. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s nominee to be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the president said he would work with Congress to ensure more transparency about how terrorists — including Americans — are targeted overseas.
“I will continue to engage with Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention, and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world,” Mr. Obama said.
