Q Is she in town to help with the rehearsal?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No.
Q Did you say he's going to talk more on immigration reforms?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I did.
Q Can we go back to David's question on finance?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No. (Laughter.)
Q I think the speculation was late February, early March to introduce proposals.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Oh, oh. I'm sorry, I was talking about passages.
Q No, no -- proposals.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't know. I haven't even heard it for that aspect. Like I said, there's a lot of committee work that needs to be done. So I'm not going to be able to predict timetables, except for the fact that we obviously think that it ought to be done this year.
Q About alliances, the importance of alliances. As far as I know, the standard line was, we value the alliances, but if need be, we can and are willing to go it alone anywhere in the world, in any task. Will this kind of principle be in the speech?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, every country, or at least this country, believes that if its national security is at risk, it has the obligation and responsibility to its people to act. And he obviously prefers and has demonstrated he prefers that the more people joining in those efforts the better. Thankfully, we've never had to act alone. We've acted with coalitions representing many countries, 28 countries right now operating in Iraq, for example. Much like there has been other cases where, for example, the U.N. has decided not to join in an effort, it doesn't, by itself, define it as alone.
But he will demonstrate that working together -- and he'll have another opportunity, obviously, when he travels to Europe, to discuss, obviously, the trans-Atlantic alliance, but also the importance of alliances and why he will work in the second term to build alliances, to address some of the big, difficult issues facing our country and the world.
Q -- the same, basically, as always?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: He will put an emphasis on the fact that working together we can achieve great goals.
Q Will the legislation on Social Security come from the White House? I've spoken to at least one lawmaker who says, that's the definition of the President spending political capital on Social Security, to take responsibility for the legislation itself.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, we have successfully worked with the Congress in different ways, whether it be through principles or through legislation. Again, Wendell, I think we -- the President has one objective, that's passing a bill. And if that requires putting out all the details early, he will do so; all details later, he will do so; partial details -- his point is, let's get something passed. But there will be no doubt that the President won't provide the political leadership necessary, spend the political capital, if you will, to get this issue before the American people and, obviously, hopefully passed through the United States Congress.
Q One quick -- the President has ruled out raising taxes, he said is one of his, I think, six principles on this. There's always this question whether when he said that he's just talking about the rate, or whether he will entertain the possibility of raising the cap. Right now, as I understand it, your taxed on your first $90,000 of income, this year, and some people say raising the cap by a certain amount would bring in the money. Has he ruled out raising the cap or not?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, again, I'm not going to get into the position of negotiations. The President has ruled out raising payroll taxes, believes that we've seen a few past efforts that just raising taxes has not been able to solve the problem. And I think studies will show that if you remove the cap entirely, it would only move the solvency date back six years. So that's not a permanent fix.
But, again, details are going to be negotiated with the Congress. As I said, he will offer his own thoughts on details tomorrow night, and looks forward to the debate that ensues.
Q Is the President going to include South America and talk about the troubles that we have with terrorism and a lot of other problems we have --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It's a very important issue to the President. And the fact that to successfully win the war on terror will require nations throughout the world -- in order -- (inaudible) -- and demonstrated his priorities when he traveled to Chile last year, right after the election, and will continue to talk about it.
This speech, he's going to be talking about some of the other priorities in the world, so in later -- at later dates, we'll talk about those priorities.
Q On North Korea, are they going to talk about how to bring North Korea back to the table, maybe a timeline, shed some light on how they want --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The President will reiterate the fact that six-party talks are important. This is, as you know, not a foreign policy address in which you go through all the details. This is a State of the Union in which he will
-- which gives indication of the President's priorities at this time. So you can expect him to renew the call for the approach that he believes is the most successful way of dealing with the North Koreans.
Q Even Republicans who support private accounts can see that they will do nothing to shore up Social Security in the long-term. Does the President plan to provide some more details about that part of it?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, the President has said publicly that he fully recognizes that to permanently fix Social Security is going to require action beyond just personal accounts. But personal accounts are an important part of the solution --
Q Aside from listening to Congress, is he going to lay out any sort of parameters of his thinking, or --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think that's what I indicated at the top of this briefing, that he is going to lay out the type of parameters and provide the type of political leadership to discuss the very issues and make sure that there's a permanent fix.
I'll take two more questions.
Q Will this speech have roughly equal measures of domestic and foreign policy content, or is the emphasis going to be predominantly on the domestic side?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I would say it's probably roughly half and half. But I would -- I want to go back and study that to make sure; but in my mind, my instinct is that it's pretty close to half and half.
Last question.
Q Can you just clarify two things?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: To show that we're -- the outreach continues to --
Q Beginning right here. (Laughter.) Can you clarify two things? One is, on Iran, are you saying that the speech will give a strong indication the President is leading us towards a diplomatic solution in Iran? Because you know there are fears abroad that there is an inclination towards a military solution for Iran.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I've noticed that many people don't pay attention to the words the President has used, in which he has demonstrated time after time after time that he believes that diplomacy, working with our European allies, can -- is the most effective way at this time to convince Iran that the path they're taking is not one that would help them join the community of nations. So he will continue to make that clear, not only in the State of the Union, but obviously when he has an opportunity to meet with his European allies, to heap praise on them for the efforts so far.
Thank you very much.
