Obama will propose $320,000,000,000 tax increase in his State of the Union address.

◼ Escalating his battle with congressional Republicans, President Obama will propose $320 billion in higher taxes in his State of the Union address, mostly by raising the rate on capital gains and closing tax loopholes for wealthier families, senior administration officials said Saturday. - Dave Boyer/Washington Times

◼ The State of the Union: What It Is and Why It Matters - Daily Signal

More than an administrative photo-op, each State of the Union exists as a historical microcosm of a particular moment in the American experience.

During the 1862 State of the Union, as the Civil War tore the nation asunder, President Abraham Lincoln urged Congress to abolish slavery to preserve freedom. When Nazi tyranny threatened European liberty, President Franklin D. Roosevelt used his address to urge a neutral Congress to resupply America’s future allies....

A constitutional cornerstone, the annual State of the Union hallmarks the institution of democratic mixed government. Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution mandates that the president “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union.”

Unlike the British crown in Parliament model, the U.S. executive only addresses Congress at the express consent of a coequal legislature. When invited by the speaker of the House, the president must give an account for the health of the union.

Once a year for this address, the whole government gathers in the House chamber as representatives sit next to senators as well as Supreme Court justices and cabinet secretaries.

◼ Obama has become a figure of American disappointment - Boston Globe

...six years on, in many important ways, Barack Obama has become a figure of American disappointment, with last week’s inexplicable failure to properly honor the trauma of France only a latest instance of mystifying solecism. Obama’s political and personal enemies never saw him as a force for good, yet by now even many of his once-passionate admirers admit to a profound disenchantment. The shattering of an illusion tied to a figure of such intelligence, deeply rooted liberal purpose, and evident public virtue necessarily involves a further — and perhaps dangerous — disillusionment with democratic will itself....

The air of disappointment could readily become a cloud of national demoralization. Yet the State of the Union address is the country’s ritual of rededication, and, by definition, the event basks in promise. Obama has already let the citizenry in on “little previews” of the issues he will take up, like cybersecurity and the expansion of community colleges, but the stakes are far larger than any single initiative he can propose. The president is clearly chastened, but so is the nation. Americans must not judge him as if responsibility — for the future as much as for the past — lies with him alone. He will invite us all to seize this moment to begin again, and we should. We still can.