SOTU 2014

On Tuesday evening, President Obama delivered his State of the Union address, during which he laid out his vision for the coming year.

One of the president’s primay goals for the coming year is immigration reform. Obama linked immigration reform to economic growth: “Independent economists say immigration reform will grow our economy and shrink our deficits by almost $1 trillion in the next two decades,” said Obama, according to the National Journal. The President also acknowledged that there is bipartisan agreement on the need for immigration reform: “So let’s get immigration reformdone this year.”

“In the coming weeks, I will issue an Executive Order requiring federal contractors to pay their federally-funded employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour…” said President Obama as he laid out the second of his major goals for the coming year.

“I’ve asked Vice President Biden to lead an across-the-board reform of America’s training programs to make sure they have one mission: train Americans with the skills employers need, and match them to good jobs that need to be filled right now,” said President Obama. While immigration reform is one of the president’s major goals for the coming year, apparently it isn’t the only reform he wants to make, as job training reform is another “pet project” of his.

Fourth, President Obama wants to cap student loans. “We’re offering millions the opportunity to cap their monthly student loan payments to ten percent of their income…” said the President.

“Both Democrats and Republicans have argued that our tax code is riddled with wasteful, complicated loopholes that punish businesses investing here, and reward companies that keep profits abroad…Let’s work together to close those loopholes, end those incentives to ship jobs overseas, and lower tax rates for businesses that create jobs here at home,” said President Obama as he acknowledged bipartisan agreement on the need for tax code reform. He also wants to implement a tax policy “that stops giving $4 billion a year to fossil fuel industries that don’t need it, so that we can invest more in fuels of the future that do,” said the President as he added tax code reform, and his desire for implementing tax breaks for oil, to the list of reforms he wants to see implemented in the coming year.

The President also hopes to restore unemployment insurance that Congress allowed to expire for 1.6 million individuals.

The President also reiterated some of last year’s goals which were not accomplished. “Last year, I asked this Congress to help states make high-quality pre-K available to every four year-old. As a parent as well as a President, I repeat that request tonight. Last year, I also pledged to connect 99 percent of our students to high-speed broadband over the next four years. Tonight, I can announce that with the support of the FCC and companies like Apple, Microsoft, Sprint, and Verizon, we’ve got a down payment to start connecting more than 15,000 schools,” said President Obama.

It seems that President Obama is all about reforms, the last reform he adds to his long list of desired reforms is his plans for reforming our surveillance programs.

“In Syria, we’ll support the opposition that rejects the agenda of terrorist networks,” said the President of his foreign policy goals for Syria. He also touched upon his goals for Iran.

These are the major goals highlighted by the President which he hopes to accomplish in the coming year.