Obama previews his State of the Union address

President indicates that he will stress economic themes in his annual speech on Tuesday night.

By Julie Pace

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: 9:15 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 22, 2011

Tim Sloan/ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Barack Obama, here in last year's State of the Union address, says he will focus on jobs and long-term growth.

WASHINGTON — Under pressure to energize the economy, President Barack Obama said Saturday he will use his State of the Union address to outline an agenda to create jobs now and boost long-term American competitiveness.

Obama is expected to use Tuesday's prime-time speech to promote spending on innovation while also promising to reduce the national debt and cooperate with Republicans.

"I'm focused on making sure the economy is working for everybody, for the entire American family," Obama said in an unusual preview of his speech, offered up in a video e-mailed Saturday to Democratic activists. The president announced that the economy would be the main topic of his annual address.

At the halfway point of his term, Obama said the economy is on firmer footing than it was two years ago: It is growing again, albeit slowly, while the stock market is rising, and corporate profits are climbing. But with the unemployment rate stuck above 9 percent, Obama will signal a shift Tuesday from short-term stabilization policies toward those focused on job creation and longer-term growth.

In his weekly radio address Saturday, Obama highlighted trade as a way to increase U.S. exports and put Americans to work.

"That's how we'll create jobs today," he said. "That's how we'll make America more competitive tomorrow."

In his video preview to supporters Saturday, Obama said he would emphasize fiscal restraint in Tuesday's address but gave no details, saying only that any spending cuts should be done in a "responsible way."

The president is under growing pressure to tackle the debt from the public and lawmakers, particularly some newly elected Republicans who ran on pledges to cut spending. Obama, too, has made spending cuts a priority, setting up a bipartisan fiscal commission that recommended tax increases and cuts to entitlement programs — both efforts that probably would be a hard sell to the American people.

Obama will speak Tuesday to a Congress changed both by Republican wins in the November election and the attempted assassination of one of its own. Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head two weeks ago in Tucson, Ariz., in her district.

Since then, the president has appealed for more civility in politics, and in a nod to that ideal, some Democrats and Republicans will break with tradition and sit alongside each other Tuesday night for his speech.

For example, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, said last week that he will sit beside Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo during the State of the Union address. "We disagree on several issues, but we don't let those get in the way of working together in areas where we share common ground," McCaul said.

Obama hinted in his video Saturday that he would build on that theme during the State of the Union, tying the country's economic success to bipartisan cooperation.

"We're up to it, as long as we come together as a people—Republicans, Democrats, independents—as long as we focus on what binds us together as a people, as long as we're willing to find common ground even as we're having some very vigorous debates," he said.

The president, advisers said, also will offer a vigorous defense of his health care overhaul, which House Republicans voted last week to repeal.

But in the GOP's weekly address Saturday, Republicans focused on their efforts to repeal the law.

"We are now one step closer to victory in the fight for a health care policy that puts Americans first — not Washington," said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. "Our job won't be done until we repeal and replace this bad law."

Additional material from The New York Times and the Tribune Washington Bureau.