OBAMA GOES BOLD — President Obama did pretty much exactly as expected in his State of the Union address, taking credit for an improving economy and pushing a laundry list of proposals — most of them likely to go nowhere — to address stagnant middle class wages. But he went event harder on the state of the economy than many expected. The key line: “The shadow of crisis has passed, and the State of the Union is strong.

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PRO BANK TAX — Dennis Kelleher, President and CEO of Better Markets: “The President’s proposed fee on the largest banks’ liabilities is tiny, targeted and will not affect consumers, savings, lending, growth or jobs. All this fee would do is make the handful of biggest banks bear some of the costs of their high-risk funding so that American families don’t have to pay after the next crash”

Read the full Politico: Morning Money article by Ben White here.