President Obama's State of the Union blueprint for economic recovery relies heavily on government intervention and tax hikes on the wealthy, but will likely do little to lower the temperature in Washington or gain traction in an election year, say lawmakers and analysts who wonder why the president didn't address the most critical factor for growth -- eliminating debt.

President Obama heads out on the road Wednesday to visit battlegrounds states where he will try to sell his agenda, and his reelection bid, outlined in a lengthy address to Congress and the nation on Tuesday night.

In an ambitious speech that focused on manufacturing, clean energy investment and educational training as economic opportunities, the president said he wants to return America to prosperity by eliminating inequalities that he claims favor the rich at the expense of the rest. He prioritized extending a payroll tax cut and suggested raising the rates on wealthy Americans to pay for it.

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was a wish list, not a to-do list.

President Barack Obama laid out an array of plans in his State of the Union speech as if his hands weren’t so tied by political realities. There can be little more than wishful thinking behind his call to end oil industry subsidies — something he could not get through a Democratic Congress, much less today’s divided Congress, much less in this election year.

And there was more recycling, in an even more forbidding climate than when the ideas were new: He pushed for an immigration overhaul that he couldn’t get past Democrats, permanent college tuition tax credits that he asked for a year ago, and familiar discouragements for companies that move overseas.

A look at Obama’s rhetoric Tuesday night and how it fits with the facts and political circumstances...

TAMPA, Fla — Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney urged voters here to make President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday his last and blamed the Democrat for pushing policies that have raised the nation’s unemployment rate, worsened the housing crises and pushed the nation deeper into a sea of red ink.

Standing under an “Obama Isn’t Working” banner, the former Massachusetts governor said that Mr. Obama, during his first three years in office, has “amassed an actual record of debt, decline and disappointment” and pushed the nation toward a “European-style welfare state.”

Along the way, Mr.

Colorodo Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn is skipping Tuesday night's State of the Union speech in a protest of President Obama's policies over so-called recess appointments, rejection of the Keystone pipeline, deficit spending and "draconian" cuts to the defense budget that were negotiated in the debt ceiling deal last summer.

The three-term lawmaker said he has never passed on a presidential address to a joint session of Congress, but this year’s speech is different because President Obama is "in full campaign mode and will use the address as an opportunity to bash his political opponents"...

The federal government is headed for the largest deficit in history, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday morning in offering a sobering check on the country’s finances the day after President Obama‘s address to Congress.

CBO said the deficit for fiscal year 2011 will reach $1.48 trillion, topping 2009’s record $1.416 trillion. The deficit is then projected to drop in 2012 and beyond, though only if Congress follows through on major spending cuts, which it has been unwilling to make in the past.

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf said last month’s extension of the Bush tax cuts and a new payroll tax cut have cut revenues, even as government spending continues to grow, leaving a “daunting” budget challenge, complicated by the fact that the economy simply isn’t recovering very well...

President Barack Obama delivered a State of the Union speech last night that was long on political rhetoric on other political topics but essentially ignored pro-life issues at a time when they are prominent on the minds of Americans.

Just one day after hundreds of thousands of people participated in the March for Life in the nation’s capital and on the heels of the national controversy surrounding the arrest of grisly abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell and his staffers — who killed and injured women in abortions and killed babies via infanticide shortly after their purposeful premature birth — Obama mentioned nothing about abortion.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, a pro-life advocate, delivered the Republican response and he mentioned that protecting human life is part of the proper role of the federal government...

When Rep. Paul Ryan delivers the Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday, many viewers will get their first look at a man whom GOP leaders are trusting to manage a central policy issue—how to cut the federal budget—that could shape the party's image for years.

While unknown to most Americans, Ryan, 40 years old, has established himself as a leading conservative thinker on federal spending, shaped in part by his early work for supply-side icon Jack Kemp.

Now, Republicans not only have made Ryan chairman of the House Budget Committee, but on Tuesday the House is expected to vote to give him unprecedented powers to force spending cuts for the current fiscal year. That authority will allow Ryan to act unilaterally in setting an overall spending level for the rest of the year, a job usually handled by his full panel...

Just one day before President Obama’s State of the Union address, it’s still not clear whether Chief Justice John Roberts will attend or, like high court colleague Justice Samuel Alito, skip the event.

The recent uptick in collegiality from lawmakers on Capitol Hill in the run-up to Tuesday’s speech contrasts sharply with the lingering controversy from last year’s speech in which President Obama rebuked the justices over a campaign finance decision. If Roberts decides not to attend, it would be his first absence at a State the Union Speech since joining the court in 2005.

Roberts’s decision -- or that of any other justice for that matter -- wouldn’t normally be an issue but for the instant uproar that resulted from last year’s address and the observations he and some of his colleagues have made over the last 12 months about the celebrated but often hyper-partisan evening...

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has taken issue with President Obama for comments during the State of the Union address.

During his speech in late January, the president criticized the Supreme Court for its recent decision on the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. "With all due deference to the separation of powers, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said while six of the nine justices were seated before him.

Speaking in Alabama on Tuesday, Roberts acknowledged anyone is free to criticize the court -- but that "the setting, the circumstances, and the decorum" must be considered....

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said Tuesday that the scene at President Obama's first State of the Union address was "very troubling" and that the annual speech to Congress has "degenerated into a political pep rally."

Responding to a University of Alabama law student's question about the Senate's method of confirming justices, Justice Roberts said senators improperly try to make political points by asking questions they know nominees can't answer because of judicial ethics rules.

"I think the process is broken down," he said.

During the January address, with six of the court's nine justices seated before him in their black robes, Mr. Obama chided the court for its campaign finance decision...