WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama delivers an assessment of the country's well-being Tuesday, his first report to a divided Congress where newly empowered Republicans are deeply skeptical about his plans for creating jobs, cutting the federal debt and spurring economic recovery.
The nationally televised address at the halfway point of his term also effectively marks the opening of Obama's 2012 re-election bid. It offers a chance to reset the political calculus after Republicans swept out the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives in the November elections and gained ground in the Senate where they remain in the minority.
Obama will home in on jobs, the issue of most importance to the public and to his hopes for a second term.
Specifically, he will focus on improving the education, innovation and infrastructure of the United States as the way to provide a sounder economic base. He will pair that with calls to reduce the government's debt — now at $1.4 trillion — and reform government. Those five areas will frame the speech, with sprinklings of fresh proposals.
By addressing the economic concerns of voters who drove the Republican wave in the last election, Obama hopes to build on his newfound readiness to compromise with Republicans — as he did late last year on taxes — and the White House shake-up that brought in new advisers who are seen as far friendlier to the business community, a Republican bastion.
In turn, Democrat Obama has seen his approval rating climb sharply since the Republican election landslide. His overall approval rating in an Associated Press-GfK poll released last week stood at 53 percent, 6 points higher than after the November congressional election.
Obama also has found help in a glimmer of better news about the economy. A survey released Monday by the National Association for Business Economics was more positive than at any time since the start of the Great Recession, the deepest economic decline in the United States since the 1930s. The survey showed that all major industry groups were seeing more demand for their products and services, a precursor to job growth.
While Obama was not expected to outline specifics, his message was likely to recommend targeted cuts in government spending and the federal budget.
Three areas consume the vast majority of government spending: defense and two programs for older Americans, Medicare health insurance and Social Security pension payments.
Cutting any of those is politically dangerous. Defense cuts hurt big businesses, a major Republican constituency, which have huge contracts to build weapons systems and can produce even greater unemployment. Cutting into benefits for older Americans has always produced a political backlash that has quickly washed away changes in those programs.
There is some expectation Obama also will reprise a December speech he gave that declared the United States now faces a new "Sputnik moment" — and must respond with a new American vigor to global competition.
He was expected to return to that theme, recalling the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of the first Earth-orbiting satellite, ahead of the United States. He intends to say the U.S. is again facing challenges from abroad, this time from fast-growing economies in China, India and throughout Southeast Asia.
In his travels to Asia and during Chinese President Hu Jintao's recent trip to Washington, Obama has said he has been struck by the rapid rise of that region and the laser-like focus on competing in the global economy.
In his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama also highlighted free trade as a way to increase U.S. exports and put Americans to work.
"That's how we'll create jobs today," Obama said. "That's how we'll make America more competitive tomorrow. And that's how we'll win the future."
But finding the money for programs to boost competitiveness is the problem. He set off alarms among Republicans when he spoke of investments in education, innovation and infrastructure as the way to provide a sounder economic base.
"Any time they want to spend, they call it investment, so I think you will hear the president talk about investing a lot Tuesday night," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. "We'll take a look at his recommendations. We always do. But this is not a time to be looking at pumping up government spending in very many areas."
The second-ranking House Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor, closed ranks with McConnell, saying, "We want America to be competitive" but "the investment needs to occur in the private sector" rather than be the result of more government spending.
Obama's speech comes less than three weeks after an assassination attempt on Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, who was shot in the head during a one-man rampage that left six dead and 13 wounded. Among those who will sit with first lady Michelle Obama during the president's speech will be the family of a 9-year-old girl who was killed, an intern to Giffords who rushed to help her at the shooting, and trauma surgeons who have treated the wounded lawmaker.
In an attempt at unity and toning down the often vitriolic political rhetoric, some Democratic and Republican lawmakers will sit together at Obama's speech, breaking with the tradition of sitting on opposite sides of the House chamber.
Republicans have chosen Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who as chairman of the House Budget Committee is an emerging voice for the party on behalf of spending cuts, to deliver the televised response to Obama's address. He is planning to promote budget cuts as essential to responsible governing.
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Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor and Jeannine Aversa contributed to this report.