US risks losing its global supremacy, Barack Obama to warn
The US risks losing its global supremacy and must "win the future by out-innovating, out-educating and outbuilding the rest of the world," President Barack Obama is to tell Americans on Tuesday night.
President Obama will make his second 'State of the Union' address Photo: EPA
The US president is to use his State of the Union speech to promise to rein in a growing debt that is deeply alarming to voters.
Keeping his focus tightly on job creation, aides said Mr Obama would outline a plan "to win the future by out-innovating, out-educating and outbuilding the rest of the world", while "reforming our government so that it's leaner and smarter for the 21st century".
A briefing paper released by the White House in advance of the address on Tuesday said: "The most important contest we face today is not between Democrats and Republicans. It's America's contest with competitors across the globe for the jobs and industries of our time."
With unemployment stuck at 9.4 per cent and the likes of China, India and Brazil surging in the global economy, Mr Obama is also expected to address the insecurity about the future that many Americans feel.
The national ego has been bruised by the fact that Chinese credit is keeping the US solvent, and Mr Obama was expected to refer directly to China's superiority in the clean energy and wind turbine market as a way of encouraging Republicans to support central funding for industrial initiatives.
The State of the Union, which draws a television audience of more than 45 million, comes as Mr Obama begins the second half of his four-year term facing the awkward reality of sharing power with the Republicans, who now control the House of Representatives after a landslide victory in November's midterm elections.
On the eve of the speech Republican leaders made it clear that winning their support for any increase in government spending would be difficult.
The party on Tuesday presented a symbolic resolution to return spending to levels before Mr Obama came into office.
Eric Cantor, the chief Republican whip in the House, said: "Americans want more jobs and less spending that will just saddle their children with debt."
Tuesday night's atmosphere in the House chamber is expected to be more sober and civil than in recent years. It is less than three weeks since an assassination attempt in Tucson, Arizona on Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who is recovering after being shot in the head during a one-man rampage that left six dead.
Among those who were invited to sit with Michelle Obama, the first lady, at the president's speech are be the family of a nine-year-old girl who was killed, an aide to Ms Giffords who rushed to help her at the shooting and trauma surgeons who have treated the wounded representative.
In an attempt at unity following an attack on one of their own, dozens of Democrats and Republicans plan to sit together during the president's speech, though some have dismissed that idea as superficial.
The focus on tone follows a fractious occasion last year. When Mr Obama rebuked a Supreme Court decision in his State of the Union speech Justice Samuel Alito mouthed back from the audience, "not true". He will this year be at an engagement in Hawaii, though six of the court's nine justices are due to attend.
On the eve of the speech Republican leaders made it clear that winning their support for any increase in government spending would be difficult.
The party on Tuesday presented a symbolic resolution to return spending to levels before Mr Obama came into office.
Eric Cantor, the chief Republican whip in the House, said: "Americans want more jobs and less spending that will just saddle their children with debt."
Tuesday night's atmosphere in the House chamber is expected to be more sober and civil than in recent years. It is less than three weeks since an assassination attempt in Tucson, Arizona on Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who is recovering after being shot in the head during a one-man rampage that left six dead.
Among those who were invited to sit with Michelle Obama, the first lady, at the president's speech are be the family of a nine-year-old girl who was killed, an aide to Ms Giffords who rushed to help her at the shooting and trauma surgeons who have treated the wounded representative.
In an attempt at unity following an attack on one of their own, dozens of Democrats and Republicans plan to sit together during the president's speech, though some have dismissed that idea as superficial.
The focus on tone follows a fractious occasion last year. When Mr Obama rebuked a Supreme Court decision in his State of the Union speech Justice Samuel Alito mouthed back from the audience, "not true". He will this year be at an engagement in Hawaii, though six of the court's nine justices are due to attend.
