After the resounding victory by Republicans at all levels of government—local, state and federal—in November, there was some speculation about the posture and tone President Obama might take in his final two years in office. The more optimistic prognosticators predicted something similar to President Clinton’s model of reaching compromise to achieve a few key accomplishments, while continuing to push on a number of other fronts a more-ideological agenda. Some even hoped that the president would coast into retirement.
Any hopes that the president would coast the next two years—or work on serious accomplishments—were loudly and defiantly squashed in the State of the Union address. The president challenged the now Republican-controlled Congress to pass many of his yet unfulfilled 2008 campaign promises and even threw a few more onto the pile. It was clear that the audience to whom the president was speaking was not Congress, nor the American people, but the heads of federal agencies that seek to control wide swaths of business today through regulatory fiat.