President Barack Obama is expected to readdress job creation and the economy in his State of the Union address Tuesday, speaking on how improvements to education, clean energy production, and reducing the deficit could lead to economic growth.
President Barack Obama reaches out to shake hands after giving his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington in 2012. Obama will center his upcoming Feb. 12 State of the Union address on boosting job creation and economic growth, underscoring the degree to which the shaky economy threatens his ability to pursue other second-term priorities, including immigration reform and climate change.
Susan Walsh/AP/File
EnlargePresident Barack?Obama?will focus his State of the Union address on boosting job creation and economic growth at a time of high unemployment, underscoring the degree to which the economy could threaten his ability to pursue second-term priorities such as gun control, immigration policy and climate change.
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Obama?also may use Tuesday's prime-time address before a joint session of Congress to announce the next steps for concluding the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
Obama's?State of the Union marks his second high-profile speech to the nation in about three weeks, after his inaugural address Jan. 21 that opened his second term. White House aides see the two speeches as complementary, with Tuesday's address aimed at providing specifics to back up some of the Inauguration Day's lofty liberal rhetoric.
The president previewed the address during a meeting Thursday with House Democrats and said he would speak "about making sure that we're focused on job creation here in the United States of America."?Obama?said he would try to accomplish that by calling for improvements in education, boosting clean energy production, and reducing the deficit in ways that don't burden the middle class, the poor or the elderly.
While those priorities may be cheered by some Democrats, they're certain to be met with skepticism or outright opposition from many congressional Republicans, especially in the Republican-controlled House. The parties are at odds over ways to reduce the deficit. Republicans favor spending cuts;?Obama?prefers a combination of spending cuts and increasing tax revenue.
The president said he would address taxes and looming across-the-board budget cuts, known as the sequester, in the speech. The White House and Congress have pushed back the automatic cuts once, and?Obama?wants to do it again in order to create an opening for a larger deficit reduction deal.
"I am prepared, eager and anxious to do a big deal, a big package that ends this governance by crisis where every two weeks or every two months or every six months we are threatening this hard-won recovery," he said last week.
The economy has rebounded significantly from the depths of the recession and has taken a back seat for?Obama?since he won re-election in November. He's instead focused on campaigns to overhaul the nation's patchwork immigration laws and enact stricter gun control measures following the massacre of 20 schoolchildren in Connecticut in December.
The president also raised expectations for action this year on climate change after devoting a significant amount of time to the issue in his address at the inauguration.
But the unemployment rate is persistently high at 7.9 percent, economic growth slowed last quarter and consumer confidence is falling, so the economy could upendObama's?plans to pursue a broader domestic agenda in his final four years in office.
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