Obama in State of the Union: The shadow of crisis has passed

In a shift from State of the Union tradition, Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress was less a laundry list of new proposals and more an attempt to sell a story of national economic revival. He appealed for “better politics” in Washington and pledged to work with Republicans, even while touting bread-and-butter Democratic economic proposals and vowing to veto GOP efforts to dismantle his signature achievements.

“We can’t put the security of families at risk by taking away their health insurance or unraveling the new rules on Wall Street or refighting past battles on immigration when we’ve got a system to fix,” Obama said. “And if a bill comes to my desk that tries to do any of these things, I will veto it.”

Obama’s address marked the first time in his presidency that he stood before an entirely Republican-controlled Congress, with a new GOP-majority Senate seated this month. Yet the shift in the political landscape has been accompanied by a burst of economic growth and hiring that appears to have elevated Obama’s sagging approval ratings, which contributed to his party’s rout in the November elections.

After ticking through signs of the rising economy, the president turned toward the less-than-enthusiastic Republicans sitting in the chamber and said with a wink, “This is good news, people.”

“At this moment, with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry and booming energy production, we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth,” he said. “It’s now up to us to choose who we want to be over the next 15 years and for decades to come.”

The centerpiece of Obama’s economic proposals marked a shift away from the focus on austerity and deficit reduction that has dominated his fiscal fights with Republicans. In a direct challenge to GOP economic ideology, Obama called for increasing the capital gains rate on couples making more than $500,000 annually, to 28 percent.

The president’s tax plan would also require estates to pay capital gains taxes on securities at the time they’re inherited and slap a fee on the roughly 100 U.S. financial firms with assets of more than $50 billion.

Much of the $320 billion in new taxes and fees would be used for measures aimed at helping the middle class, including a $500 tax credit for some families with two spouses working, expansion of the child care tax credit and a $60 billion program to make community college free.

“Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well?” Obama asked. “Or will we commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort?”

Even before the president’s address, Republicans were balking at his proposals.

“The American people aren’t demanding talking-point proposals designed to excite the base but not designed to pass,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “Challenge us with truly serious, realistic reforms that focus on growth and raising middle-class incomes — reforms that don’t just spend more money we don’t have.”

With an eye on a swirl of foreign policy challenges, Obama defended his decision to return to military action in Iraq and also authorize airstrikes in Syria. He said Congress could “show the world that we are united in this mission” by passing a new resolution formally authorizing the use of force against the Islamic State group.

As the U.S. eyes a March deadline for a framework agreement with Iran on its disputed nuclear program, the president vowed to veto any effort by Congress to pass new sanctions legislation. Such a step, he said, “will all but guarantee that diplomacy fails — alienating America from its allies and ensuring that Iran starts up its nuclear program again.”

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Both the White House and Republicans stacked their guest lists for the prime-time address with people who put a human face on their policy positions. Among those sitting with first lady Michelle Obama were Chelsey Davis, a student from Tennessee who plans to graduate from a community college in May; Dr. Pranav Shetty, who has been working on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and Alan Gross, who was released from a Cuban prison last month as part of Obama’s decision to normalize relations with the communist island nation.

House Speaker John Boehner, illustrating opposition to Obama’s move to normalize relations with Cuba, brought as his guest Cuban dissident Jorge Luis García Pérez, who spent 17 years in a Cuban prison. Florida Republican Sen. Macro Rubio brought Rosa Maria Paya Acevedo, whose father was a well-known Cuban dissident who was killed in a car accident that his family believes was suspicious.