Judging from his State of the Union, President Obama owes Mitt Romney an apology.

Back in the 2012 campaign, Romney was excoriated for saying this about the difference between himself and his opponent, and was booed for it, when he spoke at the NAACP convention:

“I hope people understand this, your friends who like ObamaCare, you remind them of this: If they want more stuff from government, tell them to go vote for the other guy — more free stuff. But don’t forget, nothing is really free.”

In last night’s address, Obama did precisely what Romney had accused him of. From “free” community college and more sick leave to faster Internet and second-earner tax credits, the president offered a laundry list of federal goodies for the middle class.

He did so, moreover, knowing full well that almost none of it has a prayer of passing a GOP Congress.

So if these things aren’t likely to pass, why is the president proposing them?

The answer is the 2016 election.

With two years left in office, President Obama hopes to do preemptively to the Republican Party what he so successfully did to Mitt Romney in 2012.

The fatal damage he inflicted on Romney was summed up by the now-infamous tally on an exit-poll question asking which candidate “cares about people like me.” Eighty-one percent answered Obama against only 18 percent for Romney.

In other words, the Republican challenge today is not simply to fight off Obama’s spending, as vital as that is. It’s to present a compelling vision for the middle class.

Obama made his vision clear Tuesday night. It’s a more elegant form of the one outlined by former ObamaCare adviser Jonathan Gruber when he said Americans are too dumb to make their own decisions.

There’s an opening here for Republicans to present an alternative, and Iowa’s freshman senator, Joni Ernst, did a pretty good job laying it out.

Her message? That for working families, opportunity trumps a federal program — and that the new Republican Congress is determined to make a dysfunctional Washington understand this. We’ll soon see.