|
| President Barack Obama walks with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough down the West Wing Colonnade of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013, ahead of tonight's State of the Union speech on Capitol Hill. |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pledging to revive a "rising, thriving middle class," President Barack Obama promised Tuesday night to create solid new jobs without raising the federal deficit. He's calling for a "smarter government" but not a bigger one.
In excerpts released ahead
of his State of the Union address, Obama called job creation his "North
Star" and implored a divided Congress to center its work on attracting
more jobs to the U.S., equipping Americans to compete for those
positions and making sure hard work leads to a decent living.
"It
is our unfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this
country - the idea that if you work hard and meet your responsibilities,
you can get ahead, no matter where you come from, what you look like,
or who you love," Obama said.
The president
said his proposals to increase spending on manufacturing, infrastructure
and clean-energy technologies would be fully paid for, though he did
not specify in the excerpts how he would offset the cost of his
proposals.
"Nothing I'm proposing tonight
should increase our deficit by a single dime," Obama said. "It's not a
bigger government we need, but a smarter government that sets priorities
and invests in broad-based growth."
In
focusing his annual address on jobs and the deficit, the president is
underscoring the degree to which the economy still threatens to disrupt
his broader second-term agenda. Despite marked improvements since he
took office four years ago, the unemployment rate is still hovering
around 8 percent and consumer confidence has slipped.
White
House officials said Obama was offering an outline for job creation,
though much of his blueprint
apparently includes elements Americans have
heard before, including spending more money to boost manufacturing and
improve infrastructure. Getting that new spending through Congress
appears unlikely, given that it would require support from Republicans
who blocked similar measures during Obama's first term.
Florida
Sen. Marco Rubio, a rising Republican star, was to deliver his party's
response. In excerpts of his remarks, Rubio also appealed to the middle
class, but sought to draw a distinction with the president by citing
"our free enterprise economy" as the source of prosperity, not the
government.
The president was expected to be
uncompromising in his calls for lawmakers to offset across-the-board
spending cuts that are scheduled to begin March 1 with a mix of tax
increases as well as targeted budget cuts.
The
president hasn't detailed where he wants lawmakers to take action,
though he and his aides often mention as examples of unnecessary tax
breaks a benefit for owners of private jets and tax subsidies for oil
and gas companies. Such measures are modest, however. Ending the
corporate plane and oil and gas breaks would generate about $43 billion
in revenue over 10 years.
That appeal for new
revenue is getting stiff-armed by Republicans, who reluctantly agreed at
the start of the year to increase tax rates on the wealthiest Americans
in exchange for extending Bush-era tax rates for the rest of taxpayers.
"He's gotten all the revenue he's going to get," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said. "Been there, done that."
Still,
buoyed by his re-election, the president and his top aides are
confident that Americans back their vision for the economy. Immediately
following his speech, Obama was to hold a conference call with
supporters to urge them to pressure lawmakers to back his agenda. He'll
also seek to rally public support with trips this week to North
Carolina, Georgia and Illinois.
Though Obama
was devoting less time to foreign policy in this year's speech, he was
to announce that 34,000 U.S. troops - about half the size of the
American force - would leave Afghanistan within a year. The drawdown
announcement has been highly anticipated and puts the nation on pace to
formally finish the protracted war by the end of 2014.
And
he was expected to sharply rebuke North Korea for defying the
international community and launching a nuclear test hours before
Obama's remarks. The White House said Obama would make the case that the
impoverished nation's nuclear program has only further isolated it from
the international community. North Korea said Tuesday that it
successfully detonated a nuclear device in defiance of U.N. warnings.
Also Tuesday night:
- The president was to press Congress to overhaul immigration laws and tackle climate change.
- His wish-list was to include expanding early childhood education and making it easier for voters to cast ballots in elections.
-
Obama was expected to make an impassioned plea for stricter gun laws,
including universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons.
First
lady Michelle Obama was to sit with the parents of a Chicago teenager
shot and killed just days after she performed at the president's
inauguration. Twenty-two House members have invited people affected by
gun violence, according to Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., who helped with
the effort. And Republican Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas said he had
invited rocker Ted Nugent, a long-time gun control opponent who last
year said he would end up "dead or in jail" if Obama won re-election.
