Measures to End Housing Crisis and Boost Manufacturing
President Barack Obama will stand before the
nation on Tuesday with a State of the Union reframing the election-year
debate on his terms
President Barack Obama will stand before the nation on Tuesday with a State of the Union designed to reframe the election-year debate on his terms.
The address suggests a stark contrast with his opponents on the economy and promises fairness and help for hurting families.
Obama
is expected to offer new proposals to make college more affordable, to
ease the housing crisis still slowing the economy, and to boost American
manufacturing, according to people familiar with the speech.
He will also promote unfinished parts of his jobs plan, including the extension of a payroll tax cut soon to expire.
Obama's
splash of policy proposals will be less important than what he hopes
they all add up to: a narrative of renewed American security.
He will try to politically position
himself as the one leading that fight for the middle class, with an
overt call for help from Congress, and an implicit request for a second
term from the public.
The timing comes as the
nation is split about Obama's overall job performance. More people than
not disapprove of his handling of the economy, he is showing real
vulnerability among the independent voters who could swing the election, and most Americans think the country is on the wrong track.
So
his mission will be to show leadership and ideas on topics that matter
to people: jobs, housing, college, retirement security.
President Obama, pictured here in at a campaign
event in Harlem on Thursday, will offer an address in stark contrast
with his opponents on the economy and promises fairness and help for
hurting families
On national security, Obama will
defend his foreign policies but is not expected to announce new ones on
Iran or any other front.
He will ask the nation to reflect with him
on a momentous year of change, including the end of the war in Iraq,
the killing of al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and the Arab
Spring protests of peoples clamoring for freedom. But it will all be secondary to jobs at home.
In
a winter season of politics dominated by his Republican competition,
Obama will have a grand stage to himself, in a window between Republican
primaries.
He will try to use the moment to refocus the debate as he sees it: where the country has come, and where he wants to take it.
In
doing so, Obama will come before a divided Congress with a burst of
hope because the economy - by far the most important issue to voters -
is showing life.
The
unemployment rate is still at a troubling 8.5 percent, but at its lowest
rate in nearly three years. Consumer confidence is up. Obama will use
that as a springboard.
The address remains an old-fashioned moment of national attention; 43 million people watched it on TV last year, pictured
The president will try to draw a
contrast of economic visions with Republicans, both his antagonists in
Congress and the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.
The
foundation of Obama's speech is the one he gave in Kansas last month,
when he declared that the middle class was a make-or-break moment and
railed against "you're on your own" economics of the Republican Party. His theme then was about a government that ensures people get a fair shot to succeed.
Despite
low expectations for legislation this year, Obama will offer short-term
ideas that would require action from Congress. His travel schedule
following his speech, to politically important regions, offers clues to the policies he was expected to unveil.
Both
Phoenix and Las Vegas have been hard hit by foreclosures. Denver is
where Obama outlined ways of helping college students deal with mounting
school loan debt. Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
and Detroit are home to a number of manufacturers. And Michigan was a
major beneficiary of the president's decision to provide billions in
federal loans to rescue General
Motors and Chrysler in 2009.
Motors and Chrysler in 2009.
Obama is likely, as he did in last year's address pictured, to offer ways in which a broken Washington must work together
For now, the main looming to-do item
is an extension of a payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, both due
to expire by March. An Obama spokesman called that the "last must-do item
of business" on Obama's congressional agenda, but the White House
insists the president will make the case for more this year.
If
anything, Republicans say Obama has made the chances of cooperation
even dimmer just over the last several days. He enraged Republicans by
installing a consumer watchdog chief by going around the Senate, which had blocked him, and then rejected a major oil pipeline project the GOP has embraced.
The address remains an old-fashioned moment of national attention; 43 million people watched it on TV last year.
The White House website will offer a live stream of the speech,
promising graphics and other bonuses for people who watch it there, plus
a panel of administration officials afterward with questions coming in
through Twitter and Facebook.
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