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Make economy top priority





Facing a divided Congress and a dissatisfied nation, President Barack Obama aimed at getting the U.S. economy and his own presidency back on track in his first State of the Union policy speech last Wednesday.

With a Michigan unemployment rate last month of just under 15 percent, and a Sanilac County jobless rate of 19.2 percent in December, we watched the speech with anticipation to hear plans to create jobs and grow the economy.

Obama’s speech to Congress was underpinned by two themes — reassuring millions of Americans that he understands their struggles and convincing people that he is working to change Washington even as he finds himself working within its old political ways.

Obama offered fresh details about how he wants to help businesses hire again and how he hopes to salvage an overhaul of the health care system. Yet for all of the new wrinkles he offered, the speech was measured largely by how well he reconnected with Brown City area residents and the American public.

“In this political environment, what I haven’t always been successful at doing is breaking through the noise and speaking directly to the American people,” Obama conceded last week.

The agenda sounded familiar. Obama said he will not retreat from the big issues he campaigned on and tried to get done in his first year, when political momentum was strong. He pushed for health care reform, regulation of Wall Street, energy and immigration reform, and a global fight against terrorists.

We were pleased to hear Obama prod Congress to enact new jobs legislation, seek a freeze on some domestic spending for three years and try to blunt the impact of a Supreme Court decision that gives corporations much more freedom to influence elections through political advertising.

Meanwhile, his White House is still feeling the jolt of the special Senate election in Massachusetts. When littleknown Republican Scott Brown won the seat held for nearly a half-century by the late Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, that result was widely viewed as a symbol of frustration with the economy and the powers that be.

Obama tried to more sharply cast his messages to address people’s daily concerns here in Sanilac County and abroad. That starts with creating more jobs at a time of 10 percent unemployment but extended to the other topics he addressed, including the government’s ongoing habit of spending more money than it has.

Then again, Obama already has been trying to couch his initiatives in real-life terms.

In his first address to Congress 11 months ago, a speech too early in his tenure to be considered a State of the Union address, Obama talked of people living with the economic anxiety of sleepless nights, bills they could not pay and jobs they lost.

“It’s an agenda that begins with jobs,” Obama said that night in February. It still is, but in a much tougher political environment for him and his party.

Obama remains a well-liked figure, polls show, but his overall approval rating and grades for handling issues like the economy have dropped significantly. The so-called stimulus package hasn’t created the thousands of jobs as promised, so we suggest it’s time to center in on the economy.

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