US President Barack Obama called on partisan American lawmakers to “turn the page” after what he dubbed a “breakthrough year for America”, when the economy began creating jobs at its fastest pace since 1999. “Will we allow ourselves to be sorted into factions and turned against one another? Or will we recapture the sense of common purpose that has always propelled America forward?” Obama asked in his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress, as Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, looked on.