Obama: "The shadow of crisis has passed and the state of the union is strong"

Obama opened his State of the Union address, Tuesday night, addressing America's breakthroughs of the past year. "Our economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999," he said. He mentioned that the employment rate is lower than it was pre-financial crisis, said that more kids are graduating and more people are insured than ever before, and mentioned that for the first time since 9/11, the US combat mission is Afghanistan is over, with fewer than 15,00 troops remaining in Afghanistan compared to the 180,000 troops of  6 years ago. "It's now up to us to choose who we want to be over the next 15 years, and for decades to come," Obama said.