As the Congress returns to work on Monday, the focus of the week will be President Obama's State of the Union Address, a speech that he will try to use to jump start his legislative agenda and put the heat on Republicans over everything from immigration reform to the minimum wage and climate change policies.
"The State of the Union address, no matter which year you give it, is a unique opportunity for any President to speak to the nation from Congress and lay out, as has been the tradition, his or her vision for the coming year," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
Over the weekend, a few details burbled out of the White House about the speech, but they did not indicate anything super-brand-new in terms of details.
The New York Times described it as a "modest" agenda; USA Today said the focus would be on jobs, while the AP said there would be new executive actions announced on job training and retirement security.
Also expect the President to tout the progress of his signature health law; last week the feds said the number of those enrolled in private health insurance plans had hit three million.
"Significant improvements have been made, Carney told reporters last week. "I think proof of that is that there’s so little reporting on those improvements."
Looking back at last year's State of the Union Address, there are some familiar items, such as:
+ Raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour; Democrats now want to make that over $10 per hour
+ A call for "commonsense immigration reform"
+ Urging Congress to adopt a plan for "high-quality preschool" in every state
+ A push for several gun control changes in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut school shootings
+ "Sensible steps" to deal with climate change
+ $50 billion in immediate new infrastructure spending and new funding for a long term transportation bill
Other than getting an immigration reform bill through the Senate last year, the other action items languished in the Congress - so, one should expect they might get mentioned again on Tuesday night.
Over the weekend, officials made clear the President would use executive powers to achieve some goals - but I will say this once again - executive orders can only nibble around the edges of major issues.
Executive orders on gun control are a perfect example - when the President was unable to get a gun bill out of the U.S. Senate last year, the White House vowed to move forward on gun control with a variety of executive orders.
Republicans howled in opposition, accusing the President of trying to overstep his powers.
But in the end, the changes were minor in nature - just nibbling around the edges of the issue.
For example, a few weeks ago, the President issued an order to make it easier for some states to add information about mental illnesses to the instant background check system for gun purchases.
So, if you hear outrage about the President using this speech to make big changes on certain issues without the involvement of the Congress - be skeptical.
There just isn't that much the President can do without Congressional action - and that's one reason why Mr. Obama hopes to use this speech to get the Congress to pass some bills to his liking.
It didn't really work in 2013, and it may not work in 2014, either.
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