Obama to Congress: Get it done

The first State of the Union address of President Barack Obama's second term offered a list of new initiatives if not new ideas. Mr. Obama focused on improving the economic lot of the middle class, reforming the nation's immigration system, addressing climate change and finding a balanced approach to solving our budget problems. Aside from gun control — an issue thrust on the president's agenda by the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre — and a new, ominous nuclear test in North Korea, all of the themes from the speech could have had a home in any of President Obama's previous State of the Union addresses. But given the dysfunction in Washington, the issue at hand was not whether Mr. Obama would set a dramatic new direction for the nation but whether he can finally get a divided Congress to act.

February 12, 2013