President Obama outlines economic and trade policy proposals in speech

As for raising the economy’s growth potential, the president was more persuasive. His emphasis on reforming the tangled and counterproductive corporate tax code was especially welcome, and relatively likely to draw GOP support. He offered several promising ideas on education, including a promise of “high- quality preschool” for all children, though how that would square with his promise not to increase the deficit by a single dime went unexplained. He sounded a ringing call for greater federal attention to college cost containment. “Taxpayers can’t keep on subsidizing” spiraling tuition, he said, candidly and correctly. As European trading partners had hoped, the president endorsed negotiations for a transatlantic free-trade zone, which would help America’s export industries and the jobs that depend on them. Coupled with an agreement that Obama is promoting for the Pacific region, the proposal has the potential to make his second term fruitful for global trade. He also suggested raising the federal minimum wage, from $7.25 per hour to $9 — although the precise amount is less important, in our view, than the president’s call for annual cost-of-living adjustments. In keeping with Mr. Obama’s theme of nation-building at home, foreign policy played a secondary role in his speech. He promised to bring home half of the HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025043