Congress, Not Obama, in Driver's Seat on Policy Now

President Barack Obama has nearly reached the limit to the executive orders he can issue on major policies without the approval of Congress, according to Politico.

The president is preparing for his State of the Union address next week, which will be the first time he will speak in front of the assembly when the GOP controls both the Senate and the House.

Republicans and Democrats alike will be anxious to learn what Obama has to say, due to the difficulty he faces coming up with policy proposals that will pass Congress during his final two years in the Oval Office.

According to Politico, the White House knows that although Obama still may want to "grab the public’s attention," there are only a limited number of executive options he can make without getting the support of Republican lawmakers.

"Want to make community college cheaper? Obama just rolled out a plan to make it free for two years, but he needs Congress to sign off on it, and he’s not going to get that," wrote the political news website’s David Nather.

"Raise the minimum wage? Obama has already issued an executive order to do that for federal contractors, but a federal minimum wage hike is as dead in the new Congress as it was in the last one.

"Universal pre-school? Rebuild the nation’s crumbling bridges and highways? Fix the Voting Rights Act now that the Supreme Court threw out part of it? Nope — he needs Congress for all of those things, too."

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