Tonight, America’s most unlikely president will appear before a joint session of Congress, with many Americans looking on from their living rooms, to give the annual State of the Union address.
He — and we — face an array of huge challenges.
While there are 97,000 Americans sadly engaged in a bitter, costly war with distressing battle deaths and wounds in Afghanistan, and 47,000 American soldiers still in Iraq, the United States and President Barack Obama face big problems of a faltering domestic economy, painful unemployment, too-high taxes and huge annual budget deficits afflicting all Americans.
Millions of Americans who need jobs are jobless — with 9.4 percent unemployment.
Housing foreclosures hit 1 million last year, with even more being added this year.