{"id":351,"date":"2011-01-26T09:47:54","date_gmt":"2011-01-26T07:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=351"},"modified":"2015-04-27T22:54:21","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T20:54:21","slug":"how-exactly-do-you-win-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/how-exactly-do-you-win-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"How exactly do you “win the future”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As State of the Union speeches<\/span> go, this one<\/a> was pretty good \u2014 as was the commentary that followed it.<\/p>\n

Barack Obama<\/b> resisted the temptation<\/span> presidents usually have of presenting a long list of policy initiatives and acknowledging<\/span> a long list of “everyday heroes”. Instead, he found a theme and more or less stuck to it<\/span>.<\/p>\n

The president could have looked back at the past two years. Instead, his hour-long speech looked toward the future \u2014 toward \u201cwinning the future<\/b>\u201d, as Obama put it.<\/p>\n

“We need to out-<\/span>innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world,” Obama declared in his typical tripartite<\/span> rhetoric. To Al Qaeda, he said: “We will not relent<\/span>, we will not waver<\/span>, and we will defeat you.” And to his Republican opponents, it was: “Let’s fix<\/span> what needs fixing and move forward.”<\/p>\n

(He turned around and shook the hand of John Boehner<\/b>, who a week earlier had led the House of Representatives in voting to repeal<\/span> Obama’s entire health-care reform package. At this rate<\/span>, the president is going to run out of<\/span> cheeks to turn<\/span>.)<\/p>\n

Expressed were the usual goals for using clean energy, building infrastructure and getting other countries to accept more American exports. Included were several new overtures<\/span> to the Republicans. Obama suggested that America “lower the corporate tax rate” and “simplify the individual tax code.”<\/p>\n