State of the Union prediction results: Mostly correct, with a fewsurprises (Assignment #9)

In his fourth State of the Union address, President Barak Obama mentioned several of the things I predicted he would in my previous blog and gave Americans a speech that was both what was expected and full of surprises.

Topics I predicted he would bring up included: American unity, the economy, the deficit and fiscal cliff, ending of George W. Bush’s tax breaks, health care, gay rights, immigration reform and gun rights.

Obama mentioned all but one of these topics in some way. The topic Obama did not discuss was Bush’s tax breaks coming to an end. Although, taxing was a topic he did speak about.

The economy was the most prevalent topic of the address. Obama spoke about the country’s deficit and his ideas of how to fix it. These were the topics Americans wanted to hear about the most according to NBC News. 

Education was a major topic Obama discussed. His ideas ranged all the way from pre-school to higher education.

He stated that all American children should have the same opportunities to be successful, and it starts with pre-school. Another plan relating to education Obama discussed was altering the high school curriculum to better prepare students for higher education. Finally, he proposed the idea of making higher education more affordable so more Americans can take advantage of schooling and be more successful in life. 

Health care and immigration reform combined took up a large chunk of Obama’s address. He elaborated his ideas for both topics, and urged Congress to follow behind him to make these ideas reality.

There was a small mention of gay rights and equality, but Obama did not spend time sharing details of his ideas concerning this. The mention was tied to women and gay military personnel. 

Obama kept his theme of American unity from his inauguration speech from January 21, 2013. The theme was present in most of the topics Obama spoke about.

Finally, Obama closed with the topic of gun control. Because this is such a controversial topic right now, it made sense that he would leave this for the end, and leave his audience with an emotional reaction. 

As I predicted, there were some surprises in Obama’s address. 

One of of these included climate change. Obama stated that Americans should believe what science shows us, and live in a more efficient way that will help decrease destruction of the planet. He cited natural disasters, fires and other tragedies in the last 15 years and related them directly to climate change. 

A second surprising topic was Obama's proposal to raise minimum wage amounts to $9.00 an hour. 

Cyber attacks was another topic that surprisingly came up. Although, with the recent hacking of The New York Times, it may not have been quite as big of a shock for others as I personally thought it was.

Obama also unveiled his “Fix it First” plan to Congress and the country. Obama stressed the idea of fixing the country in all aspects possible. 

Overall, I think Obama gave Americans the address they wanted to hear. He laid out his plan for the year clearly for Congress and the citizens of the United States.  He also gave Americans new topics  to think about as the new year pans out before us.

As a percentage, Obama spoke about 95 percent of the topics I guessed he would. However, I was only able to guess an estimate of 70 percent of his topics. There were some topics I did not see coming or I simply overlooked. 

Obama's fourth State of the Union address was successful and gave Congress and American citizens much to anticipate this year.