Businesses are now paying close to 50 if youre in a state like california, new york, youre paying more than 50 in tax. The top 5 pay over 50 of the income tax revenue in this country. This has to stop. The president has to stop this. And i dont think, i think he understands government. I dont think he understands that a vigorous government requires a vigorous private sector. The only way you will get a vigorous private sector if the government backs off and lets the Dynamic Energy of the private sector go forward. Neil he will be talking about not only bigger government but smarter government. Government can do a lot of good. Do you think government can . Look, we dont need smarter government. We dont need more efficient government. We needless government. People in middle class and people in the lower classes they dont need more government, they need jobs. We need to create jobs. We need the economy to grow so that we can fund these Government Programs. Look, government could be run better. Everything could be run better but we dont need more government. We need more jobs. We need need more investment. With we need more prosperity. Were not on the path to that. I hope tonight he will take a different course. Im not expecting it but im hopeful. Thank you. Neil president s cabinet coming in. New addition, john kerry, replacement for Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Leon panetta the outgoing defense secretary. That hagel confirmation approved in committee is anything but a sure thing. Peter barnes, as we await the sergeant of arms to announce the president of the United States. Is it true the president will make hacking the debt a priority. Talk about the virtues of government and whatever issues not adding to the deficit isnt that going to be the equivalent after war call to republicans . Well owe is going to talk about the budget and not adding to the deficit as you said, neil but he is going to, once again, try to often titlement reforms as part of the socalled balanced approach that he wants to take here. Neil were having some problem with your audio, peter. Maybe we can rich that. Meantime, rich edson, this is a battle republicans have to take on, or just dismiss or hope the temperment of the country will improve so theyre more open to challenging this president on new spending initiatives whether they add to the deficit or not. What do you think . Thats it, neil. When you think of what the president is looking for here. It is not to address the deficit and address the national debt. This is issue of calling increased spending, increased spending in infrastructure. The democratic argument has been to spend on education, spend on infrastructure all these other things to help create Economic Growth and therefore create revenue to help close the deficit. Youre finding a very reluctant Republican Party on capitol hill, one that still controls the house of representatives and one looking for a promise and commitment of spending cut. Certainly when it deals with slowing growth or cutting the spending of entitlement programs, they seem committed to that. They say the revenue issue is entirely closed. You heard some republicans sort of hint at perhaps closing some tax loopholes but wanting to do that in a bigger deal that deals with medicare, that deals with overhauling entitlements. What republicans heard from the president so far, they say the president has not gone far enough. This Morning HouseSpeaker John Boehner says the president is afraid to stand up to his own party, the liberals in his party to do whats right for the country and tackle entitlements. Democrats on the other hand say they need more revenue, more than the 600 billion that they secured at that deal that passed congress in the wee hours of the 2012 year going into 2013 but youre seeing the same fight break down over the same lines and the president is. Neil exactly, buddy. In the state of the Union Address the president made a justification for what a larger government can and should be doing. Neil peter, i hope things are working with you. I do want to talk to you a little bit about that because i heard from a number of republican guests tonight, if they had a choice between the automatic sequestration cuts and 1. 3 trillion that kick in march 1, or tax hikes or tax hikes they will swallow the pill and take the sequestration cuts. Yeah. The speaker is saying today that he does not want to see the sequestration happen. He does not like sequestration. The president saying the same thing but neither side seems ready to blink yet in this fight. And as a result, you are seeing some republicans who feel that, feel so strongly about Government Spending that at least sequestration would be better than nothing, even if half of it comes, more than 40 billion this year comes from cutting defense, neil. Neil i get a sense, peter, that republicans and democrats more or less looked at each other, the hell with it, weve been fighting so long, we dont even know what it is to get along so were not. The president will sound very in your face about spending initiatives whether republicans like it or not. The republicans will sound very in your face about another tax increase and here we go again. Yeah. We were talking to some Defense Staff folks from the hill the other day in a background briefing and thee said at least on the sequestration part of this, for example, that maybe they do have to go off the sequestration cliff if you will and, that over the 26day period between march 1st when sequestration kicks in and the republicans have a little bit more leverage with the continuing resolution that has to be approved to continue to fund the government for the rest of the year, that has to be done by march 27th. These staffers telling us they felt in the 26 day period it might be a coolingoff period between the two sides, neil. Neil rich edson, the pressure on marco rubio tonight with the republican response, your thoughts . Absolute pressure. Someone who is on track to at least make a bid to be president in 2016 or run for president in 2016. The last few responses that weve seen from republicans, certainly mixed reviews. Governor bobby jindal of louisiana, his performance was mostly disappointment to a number of republicans out there. Many who saw him as someone who might be a candidate in 2012 to challenge president obama. He is on the National Stage. He has been on the National Stage before. Got very good reviews of a speech he delivered at the Republican National convention in august in tampa. So the expectation here is fairly high for marco rubio as someone who is seen, because of his background, because of his makeup, because of his energy, because of the places that in politics have taken him thus far and he is only in his early 40s, that this is someone who is here to shine for republicans. Who will be the standardbearer of the party going forward. So the stakes are certainly high especially since republicans failed to recapture the white house in the past election. Neil gentlemen, thank you very much. Were just waiting now the sergeantatarms to introduce the president of the United States. Theres a procedure for this. We got advance copy of some of the president s remarks. His speech should be about an hour. That is not factoring in applause. With applause it could go back to 61, 62 minutes. The president averages anywhere from 60 applause interruptions to in, 2010, 86 such interruptions. On average barack obama state of the Union Addresses run 65 to 70 minutes with such interruptions. Do you know what president consistently holds the record for speeches before this chamber . The gold, silver and bronze for the longest televised address is to congress go to bill clinton, bill clinton and bill clinton. He spoke for an hour and a half in 2000. An hour and 18 minutes in 1999. And an hour and 16 minutes in 1998. But because there were some teleprompter disruptions in 1995, that speech clocked at one hour, 24 minutes is not the record because it was disrupted by technical problems. But the president was so flawless then, that the wrong speech came up in the teleprompter and he remembered what was the right one and off memory read it smoothly, off memory. I mean, i cant care where you are right or left that is pretty cool. Im not a slave to the prompter. Move up here, guys. Im not a slave to the prompter but that is really cool, right . These used to be written affairs. Youre not obligated to give this in a televised address, television in colonial times of course but that if you were to time out George Washingtons remarks, just read them and time them out, his remarks would have been four minutes and seven minutes respectively. Father of our country. The whole speech, four minutes, seven minutes. Lets say you interrupt with a lot of applause for the father of our country, 10 minutes tops . You sit down and itss over. Woodrow wilson one of his first remarks a professor by training. Over an hour. Didnt have as many applause back then. Now more common to have applause. More theatrical events. John kennedy, postworld war ii, among the shorter addresses, 45 to 47 minutes. More applause interruptions, then the president astutely aware getting an address under an hour so americans could have it wrapped up and finished at home. Remember it was Lyndon Johnson who brought all of this into prime time in 1965 and true to form in that first address spoke to close an hour and 15 minutes. Take full advantage of that. He did him very little good. A year later his popularity averaging 20 because of the vietnam war was on. He was just years away from being done. The hoopla continues with the latest president of the United States around him. Mr. Speaker. The president of the United States. [applause] neil barack obama entering that room there. Some of these people, and peter barnes, i will go to you. You covered this town for many a year, some of these folks have been lined up there all day long, right . I mean, and they wait for that chance to be seen shaking the president s hand. And they just part themselves there, right . Thats right, neil, but, getting on, getting on the aisle there with your democrat or republican, sometimes its, they want to make sure, regardless of party they get to shake the hand of the president of the United States on a big night like this. I do want to give you a little bit of breaking news from our colleagues at fox news. Ed henry talking to some democrats briefed on speech says tonight the president will call for an increase in the minimum wage in his his state of the Union Address. He will call for raising it from 7. 25 an hour currently to 9 per hour according to democrats who have been briefed on this speech. The last time that the minimum wage was raised, neil, by the way was in 2007. During the Bush Administration and with the support of president bush. So there is one key policy initiative that we know of, another one that we have just learned about here just in the last few minutes, neil. Neil i dont know if we have andy pozner, ck restaurant. Hope to get him later on his thoughts. I imagine peter, he will not flip over that particularly in this kind of environment, higher minimum wage to businesses that are struggling is advisable but well see what happens there. You know, when looking at this, you know, pageantry, rich edson, the president enjoys a 50 plus percent approval rating. But when it comes to americans and the direction of this country, close to 56 dont like the direction it is going. Furthermore, six out of 10 americans dont think things will look much better for their kids. So he to fight a tide that says, we reelected you, we kind of like you, we dont flip over you, we dont flip over the countrys fortunes. That is a delicate balancing act, isnt it . It is. Not like the campaign were coming off was one of the more positive campaigns in American History though few are these days. There are number of challenges we face. People dont feel very good about the direction of the economy. The economy is improving only marginally, slowly. In fact with the sequestration cuts and the tax increases there are expectations we could see continued Small Business negative growth in the country. Job creation that barely keeps up with the pace of population growth. Were not even there. And you know the president we expect will discuss like most president s do in a second term in their first state of the union about what accomplishments they made in the first term and what they hope to tackle in the second term. There are major questions dealing with deficit reduction. The president s own number of 4 trillion is more than a trillion dollars short of even most generous calculations of what this congress and president have accomplished through spending cuts and tax increases so far. There are other issues the president wants to take on when it comes to immigration and gun control. Given this congresss history of cooperation, even though the new Congress Just took over, but the dynamic we have in this congress, there isnt that much history working together to accomplish these issues at least on a largescale. The president has a number of significant challenges in his office he has to get done. Republicans are hoping for a more conciliatory tone from the president but what weve been hearing from reports and aides and others were not necessarily going to get that tonight. Republicans feel as though they havent got enthat from the president. Democrats say they havent gotten that from the republicans and around and around we go, neil. Neil kent conrad the former north dakota moderate democrat for wont of a better term, the 4 trillion dollar figure was iffy to him. He thought a better starting figure for democrats should have been at least 5 trillion in budget cuts. He wasnt even delineating how you should break it down. Five trillion would make a more impressive statement than the 4 trillion. All the speechs math attached to that. But there are not any indications the president will go beyond what he already offered. You know the white house staff far better than i, peter, thats about it. That were not going to go beyond that . Thats right. That is the number theyre sticking with right now, neil. They say they have gotten 2 1 2 trillion dollars worth of deficit reduction with all the deals they have cut with republicans the last couple years and they need another trillion 1 2. And that is the number their economists and some outside economists and others say would be required to at least stablize the debt as a percentage of the gdp going forward. At least at the over the next step years or so. Of course beyond the next 10 years it starts looking even worse, if you look at some of those projections because of all the baby boomers retiring and tapping into medicare and Social Security. Neil all right. Now there is a lot of theater and pageantry attached to these annual events, not the least of going through all this over again when the speaker introduces the president and they applaud again. Thank you. Members of congress, i have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you, the president of the United States. [applause] thank you. Neil all right. If you have not eaten dinner yet, go ahead. You have another, i would say 30 minutes to go grab a sandwich, maybe a brewski, come back, exaggerate here just to make the point that they waste a lot of time with this stuff. Wonder why john mccain wanted to become president. He hated all the pageantry. Kept things short and sweet. We would have been out of there in seven minutes with a Little George washington. Mr. Speaker, mr. Vice president , members of congress, fellow americans. 51 years ago john f. Kennedy declared to this chamber that the constitution makes us not rivals for power but partners for progress. [applause] it is my task, he said, to report the state of the union. To improve it is the task of us all. Tonight thanks to the grit and determination of the American People there is much progress to report. After a decade of grinding war our brave men and women in uniform are coming home. [applause] after years of grueling recession our businesses have created over six million new jobs. We buy more american cars than we have in five years. And less foreign oil than we have in 20. [applause] our Housing Market is healing, our stock market is rebounding, and consumers patience and homeowners enjoy stronger protections than ever before. [applause] so together we have cleared away the rubble of crisis and we can say with renewed confidence that the state of our union is stronger. [applause] but we gather here knowing that there are millions of americans whose hard work and dedication have not yet been rewarded. Our economy is adding jobs but too many people still cant find fulltime employment. Corporate profits have skyrocketed to alltime highs but for more than a decade wages and incomes have barely budged. It is our Generations Task then to reignite the true engine of americas Economic Growth, a rising, thriving middle class. [applause] it is, it is our unfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this country, the idea that if you work hard and meet your responsibilities you can get ahead no matter where you come from, no matter what you look like, or who you love. It is our unfinished task to make sure that this Government Works on behalf of the many and not just the few. That it encourage courages free enper prize, rewards individual initiative and opens the doors of opportunity to every child across this great nation. [applause] the American People dont expect government to solve every problem. They dont expect those of us in this chamber to agree on every issue but they do expect us to put the nations interests before party. [applause] they do expect us t