Obama cranks up populist pitch (The Hill)

Obama cranks up populist pitch
By Amie Parnes - 01/24/12 09:15 PM ET

President Obama used his election-year State of the Union address to issue a loud call for economic equality based on “responsibility from everybody,” a theme prefacing his 2012 campaign message.

Cranking up the volume on the populist message that the wealthy should pay higher taxes, Obama said the goal of economic equality was a return to American values and “the defining issue of our time.”

In the address — dubbed a “Blueprint for an America Built to Last” — Obama used the power of the bully pulpit before a sharply divided joint session of Congress to take the offensive and pledge that while he would work with lawmakers, he also intended to “fight obstruction with action.”

The president said “no challenge is more urgent” than to support the middle class.

“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules,” Obama said. “What’s at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values but American values. We have to reclaim them.”

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http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/206293-obama-state-of-the-union-2012-congress-economy-jobs