Obama will give his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday, Jan. 25. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
President Obama is due to deliver the annual State of the Union address to the houses of Congress soon. The focus of the annual presidential address to the legislature will be on the economy and increasing competitiveness of American businesses. He will also be discussing government spending policy.
President due to give second State of the Union address
President Barack Obama is going to give the second State of the Union address of his presidency on Tuesday, Jan. 25. It’s one of the biggest political events of the year, and there’s a new theme for this year’s address, according to ABC. Instead of traditional seating, where each party has its own wing of the chamber, some seating will be mixed with Democrats and Republicans seated together. Members of Congress will be taking “dates,” asking members of the other party (often the opposite gender) to sit with them, which was the brainchild of Senator Tom Udall (D-Colo.), as a show of bipartisan solidarity in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon.
Topic will focus on economy and ‘competitiveness’
The subject of the 2011 State of the Union will largely be devoted to the economy, the largest issue of the Obama presidency. President Obama is to focus on education, job creation and initiatives to increase the competitive stature of the United States in international trade, according to the Washington Post. Obama has been emphasizing the need to be an international powerhouse economically in recent stump speeches and is expected to expand on the theme in the annual address to Congress. Fiscal policy and gun control may be topics as well; both have come into sharp focus in recent months.
Foreign relations also to feature in broadcast
Some discussion of foreign policy is also to likely be included, as nearly all troops are expected to be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year and from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. The State of the Union will be heavily broadcast on most major networks and news channels. State of the Union addresses typically draw huge viewer ratings.
Would the product of American Labor and capital not be more competitive in the world market if it had lowwer taxes? Particularly capital, since it is taxed when earned (corporate taxes) and again when distributed (taxes on dividends as stockholders income) ?
Maybe, but what exactly Obama (or anyone else for that matter) means by "competitive" has not exactly been defined. It's a buzzword that doesn't exactly mean much specifically, but that's what buzzwords essentially do.
Essentially, what I think you're getting at concerns whether taxes place too large a burden on businesses so that they aren't competitive. Well, that isn't necessarily the case. For instance, corporate, dividend, and income taxes in many European nations are far higher than in America, and many businesses in European countries are very successful and extremely competitive – Nokia, Mercedes Benz, InBev, etc.
Americans, and I hate to say this being one, quite frankly are a bunch of petulant, spoiled children about taxes. It's like we as a nation are a five year old that thinks he won't get a candy bar. We, as a people, whine to high heaven about taxation without realizing that we pay less than many other nations and get a lot of benefits from them. Given that there are countries that have very successful and competitive businesses with higher taxes, and people in these United States tend to whimper about taxes, the problem likely lies elsewhere.