Rebounding economy gives president breathing room at State of the Union

WASHINGTON — As President Barack Obama prepares to give his sixth State of the Union address Tuesday night, he faces the strongest economic numbers of his presidency and rising approval ratings, leaving a small window to embark on a more ambitious domestic agenda.

The unemployment rate fell to 5.6 percent in December, and private sector employers have added jobs for 58 months straight — the longest streak on record. Gas prices have plummeted, the stock market is up, and the economy grew 5 percent in the third quarter of last year — the highest growth rate in a decade.

Americans’ perceptions of the economy present a mixed picture. The results of a new Al Jazeera America/Monmouth University poll suggest that many Americans still feel deep anxiety over their job prospects and the state of their finances. When asked to describe the biggest concern facing their family, 16 percent of respondents said either job security or unemployment. The second-most-cited concern was health care costs, followed by everyday bills.

Their view of how Obama is handling the economy is improving. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday found that 46 percent of Americans approve of the job he is doing overall and 49 percent approve of his handling of the economy — a marked bounce from most of 2014, when the president’s approval rating hovered in the low 40s.

"Throughout most of 2014, Barack Obama had a stiff wind in his face," Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff, told NBC News. "He starts 2015 with a slight breeze at his back."

Obama seems ready to use that political capital to secure more gains for the middle class. “Over the last six years we have been weighed down by the legacy of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression,” he said in a White House video preview of the speech. “Now that we have fought our way through the crisis, how do we make sure everybody in this country, how do we make sure that they’re sharing in this growing economy? How do we make sure they have the tools to succeed?”

The president said that he will use his address on Tuesday night to ask Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy to provide tax cuts for middle-income families, make community college free for many students and give paid sick leave to parents and other workers.

The proposals, opposed by many Republicans, seemed to mark a continuation of the assertive approach Obama has taken recently, using executive powers to push his agenda after the GOP won a larger majority in the House of Representatives and control of the Senate in the midterm elections in November. Since then, he has extended deportation relief for 5 million undocumented immigrants, dramatically overhauled U.S. policy toward Cuba, signed an ambitious agreement with China to curb greenhouse gas emissions and threatened to veto Congress’ approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.  

“He’ll put down his ideas to make sure that paychecks go a little farther, to make sure that people have the training and education they need for new jobs of the future and that we’re making sure we’re helping create those jobs,” White House chief of staff Denis McDonough told “CBS This Morning.” “So that’s what we’re going to do, and by the way, if we have to veto some bills along the way, we’ll do that.”

Still, Republicans have said that the administration’s proposals are nonstarters in Congress. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, lambasted Obama’s tax reform proposal as “class warfare” in a speech on Tuesday to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a pro-business lobbying and trade group.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged Obama to stop pushing agenda items unpalatable to the Republican majority. “He doesn't set the agenda in the Senate,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. “Looking at the rollout of what he's likely to talk about tonight — speaking of warmed-over proposals — it all looks like the same old tax-and-spend that the president's been advocating for the last six years. Hopefully, that's just rhetoric. He knows we're not likely to pass these kinds of measures, and we'll still look for things that we can actually agree on to try to make some progress here.”