The Washington Post reports:
President Obama will warn the nation Tuesday evening that the decades-old promise of a secure and rising middle class is threatened by economic unfairness as he delivers an election-year State of the Union message that is likely to resonate in the months ahead on the campaign trail.
In the third such address of his presidency, Obama will outline the steps he believes are necessary to reform a fragile American economy now showing signs of slow recovery after the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The theme of the speech is “an economy built to last,” where, in his words, “hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded.”
“The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important,” he will say in his prime-time address, according to early excerpts released by the White House.
“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by,” he will continue. “Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. What’s at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them.”
Obama has hammered on the theme of economic unfairness in recent weeks, most notably in a speech last month in Osawatomie, Kan., where he declared the trickle-down economics of his Republican predecessors a failure that the country should not return to in November.
