Obama strikes optimistic tone for America’s future

President Barak Obama has defended his legacy with vigor while talking optimistically about America’s future in his final State of the Union Address

He criticized the negativity of the current presidential race, arguing the US has the “strongest, most durable economy in the world”

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“Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction,” Mr. Obama told lawmakers in Washington.

The speech to Congress highlighted his accomplishments such as health reform.
This will be an address remembered not for its policy, but for its upbeat assessment of how much better America is today than when Barak Obama came to office, BBC North American editor Jon Sopel says.

He adds that with just a year to go and a Republican Congress, there is neither the time nor the votes to get much done.

Republicans criticized many of his claims, with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley saying in the party’s official response his record “had fallen short of his soaring words”

‘Amending politics’

“For my final address to this chamber, I don’t want to talk just about the next year. I want to focus on the next five years, 10 years, and beyond,” President Obama said.
“I want to focus on our future.”

How Republican presidential hopefuls perceived it
“The State Of The Union speech was one of the most boring, baffling and depending I have heard in a long time,” tweeted frontrunner Donald Trump.
For Ted Cruz the speech was “less a State of the Union and but a state of denial”
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“While Isis [Islamic State] is beheading, torturing, burning people in cages he [President Obama] reports climate change is our greatest threat,” said Marco Rubio in a video response.
“Safer? Isis on the rise. North Korea testing nukes. Syria in chaos. Taliban on march. This president is living in a different world,” said Jeb Bush.

“Despite his rhetoric, Americans know that our economy is not thriving, our leadership in the world is getting weaker, and the very character of our nation is threatened,” wrote Carly Fiorina on Facebook.

He rejected suggestions by politicians and commentators that America’s economy is not thriving
However, he reports: “What is true – and the reason that a lot of Americans feel anxious – is that the economy has been changing in great ways.”

Obama focused on the need to solve the problem concerning income inequality, to try to use technology to take actions to reduce climate change and maintain national security while not becoming mired in foreign conflicts.

“When politicians insult Muslims, when a mosque is vandalised, or a kid bullied, that doesn’t make us safer,” Mr Obama said.
“That’s not telling it like it is. It’s just wrong… And it betrays who we are as a country.”
In the upcoming year , Mr Obama said he wanted to:
 Shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison
 Reform matters concerning criminal justice
 Legalize the use of military force against IS
 lift the embargo on Cuba