President Obama will focus on nation building here at home in his State of the Union address this evening, announcing a troop pullout from Afghanistan and what he hopes will be a redeployment of dollars to domestic programs.
That clashes with the Republican focus on spending cuts.
He'll warn the military could be hurt by the sequestration spending cuts that will take effect March 1st unless a budget deal is reached.
Preventing sequester cuts requires a deal on taxes and spending that the president has called for in previous State of the Union speeches, but there's still no agreement.
The Obama prescription is to spend more to put Americans back to work, and pay for that
with higher taxes on the wealthy.
The liberal agenda he laid out at his inaugural address angered Republicans.
The president will push measures to stop gun violence as well.
For their response Republicans are turning to rising GOP star Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
-- Steve Handelsman reports
