President Barack Obama delineated his campaign message in last night's State of the Union address. Positioning himself as a populist alternative to Mitt Romney and the 1 percent, Obama spent the beginning of his speech laying out his economic plan for the year: "We need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of Members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes," he said. He recommended that the Buffett Rule-which would make it so millionaires can't pay less than 30 percent in taxes-be put in place. Underscoring his economic platform-which also touched on job creation, energy independence, deficit reduction, and trade-was the theme of fairness. "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, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules," Obama said.
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Chart of the Day
A word cloud of last night's State of the Union address shows that jobs, tax rates, and energy are at the forefront of Obama's agenda.
Reason to Get Out of Bed in the Morning
Before Obama went on stage to give his fourth State of the Union address, he gave Representative Gabby Giffords-who is resigning from Congress to focus on recovering from a gunshot wound she received at a campaign event last January-a big 10-second long hug.
