WASHINGTON: Seeking to bump up the federal minimum wage from the current $7.75 to $9 an hour, President Barack Obama used the annual State of the Union pulpit on Tuesday to reward his working class base and propose a raft of measures to galvanize the US economy, an effort that will have a worldwide fall-out including in India.
On the foreign policy front, the Obama announced that he's bringing home another 34,000 US troops from Afghanistan over the next year in addition to the 33,000 who have already returned, and by the end of next year, "our war in Afghanistan will be over".
However, Obama pledged that America's commitment to a unified and sovereign Afghanistan will endure beyond 2014, although the nature of the commitment will change.
The US would train and equip Afghan forces so that the country does not again slip into chaos, he said. Indicating there will continue to be a light US footprint in the region, he said counter-terrorism efforts that will allow pursuit of al-Qaida and its affiliates will remain in place.
"Today, the organization that attacked us on 9/11 is a shadow of its former self. Different al-Qaida affiliates and extremist groups have emerged - from the Arabian Peninsula to Africa. The threat these groups pose is evolving. But to meet this threat, we don't need to send tens of thousands of our sons and daughters abroad, or occupy other nations," Obama said, revealing the return of the old template of multilateral action, as in the case of Mali.
However, "where necessary, through a range of capabilities, we will continue to take direct action against those terrorists who pose the gravest threat to Americans," he pledged, suggesting that the US action would now be determined on a case by case basis depending on the circumstances and exigencies.
The wage bonanza though was at the center of a raft of economic proposals the president put on the table, maintaining that "in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty". Some 80 million people are paid by the hour in the US, and around five million earn a bare minimum wage. That puts them at around $14,500 per year and close to the national poverty line.
"That's wrong...working folks shouldn't have to wait year after year for the minimum wage to go up while CEO pay has never been higher," Obama said, tapping into the popular anger against obscene executive pay and seeking to tie the minimum wage to cost of living index.
The US president uttered the words "job/s" 45 times during his hour-long address as he gee'd up Americans chafing at a stalled economy.
He pledged to make America a magnet for new jobs and manufacturing as he reeled off companies that were coming back to the United States - Ford, Caterpillar, and Apple among them - in moves that will clearly impact India.
Initiatives on education, energy, immigration, gun control and tax reform were spelt out by the US president in what was palpably an energetic opening to his second term.
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Source: http://timesofindia.feedsportal.com/fy/8at2Eul0k1l1245W/story01.htm
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