President Barack Obama has vigorously defended his legacy while striking an optimistic note for America’s future in his final State of the Union address.
He criticised the negative tone of the current presidential race, arguing the US has the “strongest, most durable economy in the world”.
“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 prescriptions, but for its upbeat assessment of how much better America is today than when Barack 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 attacked many of his assertions, with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley saying in the party’s official response his record “had fallen short of his soaring words”.
‘Fixing 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.”
