The State of the Union, 2011

Nicely Stated

What comes of this moment will be determined not by whether we can sit together tonight, but whether we can work together tomorrow. –President Barak Obama

When I was a kid I attended a church camp and learned a song. It only had two phrases: “Praise ye the Lord” and “Alleluia.” The boys sang one phrase and the girls the other, and we were encouraged to compete with each other with regard to volume. In addition, when one group was singing it stood up while the other quickly sat down. The result resembled a reciprocating engine and achieved noise levels similar to those produced by high school basketball fans stomping on bleachers.

Every time I have watched the State of the Union Address in recent years I have been reminded of that song. The President would say something his party liked and all its members would stand up and applaud. Occasionally he would say something supported by the other party and its members would stand. Often a member, especially of the opposition, thought something sounded good and started to stand, but first hastily glanced at the party leader to make sure it was appropriate. The bouncing up and down and the jerky hesitations were entertaining but didn’t enhance the message.

It was a little different this time. Recognizing the extremes to which partisan bickering has poisoned our national debate, and recoiling from the recent tragedy in Tucson that had stricken close to home, many members of Congress chose to sit next to someone from the other party and not in blocs on their sides of the aisle. It was a symbolic gesture but one that many of their constituents, myself among them, found greatly refreshing.

Oh, yes, the members still bounced up and down, and just about every sentence President Obama uttered was applauded by one group or the other or both. It took him over an hour to give a 30-minute speech. But there was a significant feeling that at least one impediment to comity and compromise had been removed.

President Obama’s speech Tuesday was conciliatory in many ways as well, so Republicans had a number of opportunities to stand and applaud. He obviously recognizes that voters want him to work with the opposition to solve the many problems we face.

Both the Republican rebuttal, given by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the new House Budget Committee chairman, and the Tea Party rebuttal, from Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), who can usually be counted on to say something bizarrely belligerent, were unusually cogent and avoided the usual “social conservative” rhetoric that has polluted public discourse for decades. I didn’t hear abortion mentioned in any of the three speeches, and only the president mentioned gays and immigration, and just briefly. Bachmann, who recently described Obama as “the first non-American president,” stayed on-message with the other two and avoided ad hominem and “birther” nonsense.

The message, of course, is that we have great economic difficulties. Each of the three offered solutions, and while they differed to a great extent, it’s clear there is significant common ground. I found this truly refreshing; perhaps it’s because the Republicans now control the House and will be held accountable for its actions.

President Obama called for new investment in technology to bring about the next industrial revolution, citing past achievements in space and the development of the Internet, both of which spurred the economy. He called for improvements in education and the development of new infrastructure such as mag-lev trains and the next generations of renewable energy and high-speed communications, as well as rebuilding existing infrastructure, as ways to make this happen. He extolled the benefits of pure research in a newly-competitive world.

He called upon Congress to revise the tax code. “Over the years,” he said, “a parade of lobbyists has rigged the tax code to benefit particular companies and industries. Those with accountants or lawyers to work the system can end up paying no taxes at all. But all the rest are hit with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and it has to change.”

Get rid of these loopholes, he said, and the corporate tax rate can be lowered. This would make U.S. companies more competitive with the rest of the world.

He admitted that some government regulations do more to stifle business than to protect the public, while others are unnecessarily duplicative, and offered to work with lawmakers to revise them. But he made it clear that some regulations were necessary, including those recently imposed on the financial industry, and that he would resist efforts to dilute them.

The president got a well-deserved laugh when he said, “I’ve heard rumors that a few of you have some concerns about the new health care law.” The House, of course, has wasted most of its first weeks this session tilting at that windmill. Obama made it clear he wouldn’t allow a return to the status quo ante but agreed that “anything can be improved.” If there’s something wrong with it, he said, “let’s fix what needs fixing and move forward.”

That probably didn’t assuage the Republicans in the least, but it’s certainly a statement of political fact. If the GOP wants to abolish the health care law, it will have to win the 2012 election, and win it big, to do it.

Obama offered a number of cost-cutting measures. Republicans interviewed afterwards decried them as too little too late, but they represent fertile ground for compromise, and that’s a start.

Has civility returned to Congress? There are some hopeful signs. Let’s see if they work together tomorrow.