Obama's SOTU: 'Poised for progress,' pushing cooperation

In a focus on jobs and innovation, Barack Obama calls this 'our generation’s Sputnik moment.' | AP Photo Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/48169.html#ixzz1C6FbgZU1 By: Josh Gerstein January 25, 2011 07:10 PM EST

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night will put an urgent, unmistakable emphasis on growing the American economy and creating jobs, while also seeking to preserve the more cooperative tone that has prevailed in Washington since theattempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat. “At stake right now is not who wins the next election – after all, we just had an election. At stake is whether new jobs and industries take root in this country, or somewhere else,” Obama will say, according to advance excerpts of his speech releasedby the White House. “It’s whether we sustain the leadership that has made America not just a place on a map, but a light to the world.” With signs increasing that a gradual economic recovery is taking root even as joblessness still abounds, Obama plans to make some of his most upbeat statements to date about the nation’s economic health. “We are poised for progress. Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again,” according to excerpts. “But we have never measured progress by these yardsticks alone. We measure progress by the success of our people. By the jobs they can find and the quality of life those jobs offer. By the prospects of a small business owner who dreams of turning a good idea into a thriving enterprise. By the opportunities for a better life that we pass on to our children. That’s the project the American people want us to work on. Together.” Reprising a speech he gave in South Carolina last month, Obama plans to compare the nation’s need to retool its economy and educational system to a similar effort the country faced after the Soviet Union, competing for superpower status, launched the world’s first man-made spacecraft in 1957. “Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik¸ we had no idea how we’d beat them to the moon,” Obama is to say. “We unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs. This is our generation’s Sputnik moment.” The president will also acknowledge the deficit-related concerns that helped fuel Republican victories last November by calling for a five-year freeze on discretionary government spending, aides said. Reports said he intends to take a hard line against earmarks by vetoing all legislation containing them - echoing a 2008 campaign promise he made to weed out earmarks “line by line.” As president, however, he has signed bills containing thousands of lawmakers’ pet projects. Speaking less than three weeks after the shooting of Giffords that left her badly wounded and six others dead, Obama is expected to repeat his call for greater civility in politics. Potent reminders of the tragedy will be on hand: guests sitting near First Lady Michelle Obama include Peter Rhee, the doctor who oversaw Giffords’s emergency-room treatment, and Daniel Hernandez, the young intern credited with saving her life moments after she was shot. The bipartisan unity theme Obama plans to emphasize will also be evident from the seating chart: unlike prior years, in which Democratic and Republican lawmakers sat on opposite sides of a center aisle in the House chamber, several members of Congress are making a deliberate effort this year to sit with colleagues from the other party. Still, the president plans to use the talk of bipartisanship - and acknowledgement of Republican electoral successes last fall - to put the onus on the GOP to join in a substantive, respectful debate on spending and policy issues. “With their votes, the American people determined that governing will now be a shared responsibility between parties. New laws will only pass with support from Democrats and Republicans. We will move forward together, or not at all – for the challenges we face are bigger than party, and bigger than politics,” he plans to say. Health care reform—the preeminent legislative achievement of Obama’s first two years in office and a major target of the new Republican House majority—is expected to get little mention in Obama’s speech. Subjects the president may pass by entirely include gun control and the moribund Middle East peace process. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said viewers and advocates involved in those issues shouldn’t interpret any omissions as signs that Obama is abandoning those subjects. “Everything that the president’s going to work on in the next year or year and a a half is not going to be mentioned tonight,” told CNN Tuesday afternoon.