People criticized President Barack Obama for proposing small bail initiatives during his State of the Union address. Gone are the measures to confront climate change or to improve the immigration system.

Instead the president settled for small measures that can be passed unilaterally. He has several in his list and he mentioned three more in his recent State of the Union address. These are the Trade Enforcement Unit to check on China, Veterans Job Corps to help communities hire veterans as firefighters and cops, and a Financial Crimes Unit to investigate Wall Street.

The president knows that the coming year would have more gridlock and he promised that he would fight it with action. This would place Congress on the defensive for failing to improve the economy. He wants the public to think that he’s doing something to help the economy while Congress does nothing.

This type of strategy worked for Harry Truman when the Republicans controlled congress in 1948. This is a complicated situation for Obama because he has a Democratic Senate. Congress’ approval rating is 13 percent according to the latest NBC poll.

Obama’s effort to skirt around Congress is similar to what Democratic president Bill Clinton did after the GOP got control of Congress. But the difference is that Clinton chose programs based on values such advocating school uniforms and V-chips to control what children watch on TV.

During his State of Union Address, President Barack Obama said that he wants the government to have a strong role in times of federal deficits and increasing taxes. The Republicans often say that the government is the problem but the president said that the government is a major contributor to the improvement of the country’s economy.

The president stated that the country was not built by a single person alone. Teamwork is needed to make it work. Priorities should be placed on job training, clean energy and refinancing the mortgages. He mentioned the federal deficits but he didn’t highlight it as a major threat to the economy.

He proposed an increase in the tax rates for millionaires and briefly mentioned spending cuts, which is a top priority for the Republicans. His tax increase proposal would give the government budget for its programs.

The president knows that his proposal to tax the millionaires more would not be approved by Congress before the presidential election. He hopes that this would be the issue that would separate him from the eventual Republican candidate.

Polls suggest that President Obama’s message was received warmly by the voters. They think that he’s the defender of the middle class with most of his programs directed to support them. Most Americans see the tax code as unfair.

President Barack Obama gave a populist economic vision during his recent State of the Union address. This would widen the policy battle between the Democrats and Republicans. The president wants to increase the tax on wealthier Americans, support domestic manufacturing, and launch a new probe into the mortgage crisis.

The president’s initiatives would place him as the defender of Americans from the unbalanced tax code. The president said that the same rules should apply from top to bottom. There should be no bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts.

The issues he tackled will be the same ones that Americans would hear all throughout the year as President Obama tries to convince voters to vote for him again. He also wants to discourage companies from outsourcing jobs out of the country.

The president gave little details about his initiatives as he tried to rally the nation to return to old-fashioned American values. He didn’t state anything directly against the GOP but all the initiatives were the opposite of what the Republicans hope to achieve with their policies.

Aside from the year-end extension of the payroll-tax cut, most of President Obama’s ideas don’t have the chance to be approved in Congress. But there are others that he could enact unilaterally, such as the creation of a government task force that would enforce trade laws to crack down on China.

President Barack Obama is set to deliver his annual State of the Union address to Congress but most of the goals that he set in previous speeches. Some of the goals include reforming the immigration laws and meeting congressional leaders of both parties each month.

The president’s promises were broken because of congressional opposition as well as being overshadowed by other priorities. These are the realities of a government full of bureaucracy. The State of the Union is an opportunity for the president to state his case in front of both houses of Congress and on primetime TV.

Just like his predecessors, President Obama laid out a lot of promises that turned out to be fleeting because he can’t get the approval from congress. He also can’t follow-through on some of the promises that he started.

President Obama’s first term is nearing its end and it was characterized by a divided government. The Republicans also made it hard for the president to achieve anything. His State of the Union speech on Tuesday would probably include a new list of initiatives that the president would try to achieve before his term ends.

Last year, the president made his State of the Union address after an assassination try on Representative Gabrielle Giffords. He called for national unity, which has never happened because Washington engaged into one partisan dispute over another.

President Barack Obama sang a bar from an Al Green song during a fundraiser in New York. This surprised everyone in attendance. The president jokingly asked why he wasn’t ushered offstage yet. This was the first time that Obama sang on stage during this year’s campaign.

The presidential performance happened at Manhattan’s Apollo Theater last Thursday. President Obama stepped on the podium and, he first thanked Green for warming up the crowd instead of immediately starting his prepared speech.

President Obama was not contented in just praising the singer. He suddenly sang a few lines of Green’s Let’s Stay Together. He began the song with the vibrato I and paused for applause from the audience. He finished it off with the line so in love with you.

President Barack Obama said that his staff didn’t believe that he would do it. He joked that the Sandman hadn’t come out during his performance. This is a reference to Sandman Sims, who was a tap dancer who chased off unpopular acts from the stage at the Apollo for decades. Al Green said later that the president did a good job.

President Barack Obama is the first sitting president to go to the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Aside from Al Green, India.Arie also performed in the fundraising that was attended by 1,400 supporters. Tickets are worth between $100 and $5,000 per ticket.

President Barack Obama’s camp, together with the Democratic National Committee, announced that it managed to collect over $68 million in the fourth quarter of 2011. Obama for America raised more than $42 million while the DNC collected $24 million. The announcement was made by OFA Campaign Manager Jim Messina via a video emailed to supporters.

Messina said that President Obama’s grassroots campaign has been successful so far with 1.3 million donors. The average donation size was around $55. Messina warned that it is not true that Obama’s camp doesn’t accept small donations.

It is made known that the Obama campaign doesn’t get money from Washington lobbyists and super PACs. But there is a super PAC, Priorities USA Action, which was founded by two former Obama White House staffers. It supports the president’s reelection bid.

The Obama camp sent out the email after the president attended fundraisers. He first went to the University of Illinois at Chicago where tickets cost $100 each. There are several tickets priced at $44 for the campaign’s Gen44 program, which is aimed at young adults.

Obama then went to a fundraiser at a private residence where tickets cost $35,800 per pair. Then a third fundraiser took place at another private residence with tickets priced at $7,500.

White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley has handed in his resignation. Everybody, including the president was surprised with his decision. This ended his yearlong tenure, whose mission was to reach out to congressional Republicans and businesses. President Obama announced that White House budget director Jacob Lew would replace Daley.

Daley is the son of the legendary Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and the brother of former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. He has been the face of centrist Democratic politics within Obama’s administration.

President Barack Obama appointed Daley after the Democratic Party suffered losses in the 2010 election. The administration tried to reach out to congressional Republicans as they attempted to reach a compromise on decreasing the federal deficit.

Since the negotiations failed, the president decided to campaign against Congress. He travelled across the country to relay the message branding the Republicans as the enemy. He cast himself as the defender of the middle class against Wall Street and congressional Republicans. This strategy goes against Daley’s principles and background.

Daley’s resignation is the latest bump in Obama’s reelection campaign. He hoped that he could ride on his victory last month on extending the payroll tax cut. The country is also experiencing positive economic news.

President Barack Obama laid out a plan that would change the course of the armed forces in the United States. The plan calls for the reduction of the military’s size that would limit its ability to wage long-term conflicts.

The president proposed a 14 percent decrease in troops, which would not allow it to conduct two ground wars at the same time. This would change the Defense Department’s strategies with regards to solving foreign conflicts. The plan calls for the decrease in the nation’s nuclear arsenal and delay the Pentagon’s acquisition of weapons.

If the plan is approved, the power of the United States’ military machine would be drastically reduced. It would change the priorities of the Pentagon for the next decade. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq defined the first decade of the 21st century. Once the plan is set, the military would not be able to conduct two major operations in foreign soil at once.

The US military would have to drop up to half a million troops and its focus would be on countering terrorism as well as the challenges posed by an emergent Asia, which is dominated by China. Obama said that it would be a moment of transition. The military would be leaner but would still be sufficient to preserve US superiority over any rival.

President Barack Obama’s popularity rating has increased, which put him in a better position to defend his presidency in next year’s election. The presidential election is still ten months away and things could still change.

Obama is happy that is job approval ratings have rebounded despite the attacks by his Republican rivals and the country’s weak economy. Gallup poll shows that the president got 46 percent approval from American adults. This is the highest rating he got since July. At the start of the month he was at 41 percent.

Several other polls show that the president has the same recovery over the recent weeks. Observers said that part of the reason of the turnaround is the change of how people feel about the economy. Consumer’s view the economy as weak but improving.

Last Tuesday, the Conference Board in New York released an index of consumer confidence that showed an increase to 64.5 from 55.2 for December. The Consumer Confidence Index is now back in the levels that was last seen last spring. As the consumer confidence increases, the job market has also shown signs of life. The stock market stabilized and European nations have resolved their financial problems.

President Obama’s popularity has also gained ground because of the partisan fight over the renewal of the payroll tax cut for workers. The president managed to cast himself as the defender of the middle-class.

President Barack Obama was very pleased with the deal on the extension of the payroll tax cut that was scheduled for final congressional approval tomorrow. It would extend the unemployment benefits and payroll tax cut until February instead of expiring at the end of the year.

The president’s remarks came after the Senate passed the deal after months of negotiations on a package that President Obama and the Democrats wanted but was not able to get. It included an extension of one year for the payroll-tax cut as well as increasing the tax on millionaires and spending plan to increase hiring.

The Republicans failed to get the permit for the TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL oil pipeline that would go from Canada to refineries in the United States. They also failed to attach a separate spending bill that limits family planning funding, expanded healthcare coverage and environmental regulation.

The deal came before the legislators break for the holiday. It caps a year where congressional gridlock cause the country close to a default during the debt-limit standoff and the president had to go for a much lower deficit reduction.

Both parties declared victory in passing the tax-cut extension. Senate Republicans said that they forced the administration to limit its fondness for spending and additional taxes. Aside from the two-month extension on the payroll-tax cut, the deal has a provision that requires the president to say within two months his stand on the Canadian oil pipeline project.