Note: This post first appeared on the platform Medium. You can read that post here.
In two weeks, President Obama will deliver his seventh State of the Union address (technically, it’s his sixth, because the first one isn’t considered a State of the Union for whatever reason, but avert your eyes Politifact).
This year, President Obama is doing something he’s never done before: He’s laying out some of his State of the Union message and policies ahead of his address to Congress on January 20.
Typically, we try to hold all the news until the day of the speech. And there will still be plenty of moments on the big night. But this year, we figured there’s no time like the present. (For those who closely follow the President’s executive actions, there is a “we can’t wait” joke in there somewhere.) Building on the momentum of the last several weeks, the President didn’t want to wait until the State of the Union to take new steps to help the middle class and lay out his ideas to keep strengthening the economy.