Obama aims to frame 2016 debate with State of the Union address
President Obama will use his penultimate State of the Union address Tuesday to outline a broad agenda with an emphasis on government assistance for the middle class. But seeing as how Obama's proposals will meet stiff resistance in the GOP-controlled Congress, media analysts say the speech could serve more so as an early attempt to frame the 2016 election than as a blueprint for Obama's final two years in office.
In particular, Obama could effectively cast the economy's recent upswing as proof that his policies are working — and that American's should allow a Democratic successor to continue them once he's gone. For instance, Obama's proposal to finance free community college tuition and new tax benefits for the middle class via tax hikes on the rich has almost no chance of passing Congress. Yet simply raising the idea in the face of staunch Republican oppositon gives his party more ammo to ding the GOP as the party of the rich.
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