We struggle to agree with much of what President Obama said Tuesday night in his State of the Union address.

The president seems adamant that the only way for America to succeed is by focusing on our differences and giving the government more control over things.

Obama struck a populist note with his vow to fight to shrink the gap between rich and poor. The talk sounded more like campaign rhetoric than about a real desire to right America’s downward spiral.

Quite frankly, America has more non-rich people than superrich, so it’s easy to yell, “Let’s go get those nasty rich people” and hear a roar of approval.

Rich people are an easy target, but their taxes are only a tiny fraction of the problem. Our nation’s bloated spending is the real bad guy.

We fundamentally disagree with the president’s belief that the way to American prosperity is by government intervention to make everything “fair” through additional government regulation.

With rare exception, when the government gets involved in anything, it doesn’t take long before the bureaucratic “mud” begins to gum up the works.

The answer to a long string of failed government intervention in our country’s problems — banking crisis, BP oil spill, Katrina response, etc. — isn’t more intervention.

The answer is accountability in our government and fiscal responsibility on the part of our leaders.

We need leaders who can look us in the eye and clearly say, “We cannot continue to have our cake and eat it, too.” At least we cannot do that as long as we’re living on money we’ve borrowed from foreign countries.