Bush Tailors State of the Union Speech

President Bush, right, meets with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, not shown, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2007. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (Gerald Herbert - AP)

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's State of the Union speech next week will avoid the traditional laundry list of initiatives and focus on a few issues, such as energy and health care, where he might find common ground with the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Bush is considering ways to make health care more affordable and accessible and seek the power to raise gas mileage standards for passenger cars, according to former administration and industry officials.

The approach to Tuesday night's speech, as outlined Thursday by White House press secretary Tony Snow, reflects the current political landscape: Voters in November ousted Republicans as the party in charge on Capitol Hill and Bush now faces skeptical majority Democrats rather than compliant GOP lawmakers.

The speech comes less than two weeks after Bush announced a big buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq. With Bush's low approval ratings, a narrowly tailored national address might keep the public from tuning out or reaching for the remote, White House officials reason.

"I just think some of the old State of the Union formulas have kind of run their course," Snow said.

The president plans to highlight the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism as well as immigration and education, Snow said.

On the school front, for example, Bush is expected to urge that Congress renew the No Child Left Behind law, the signature domestic policy of his first term.

In last year's speech, Bush rebuked critics of his stay-the-course strategy in Iraq; at the time, more than 2,240 American troops had died. This year he will defend his plan for a war that now has claimed more than 3,000 U.S. lives.

Democrats have chosen Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, a vocal critic of the war who has a son serving in Iraq, to give their party's response. Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, who grew up in a Spanish-speaking household, will deliver the Democrats' first-ever Spanish-language preview address to the president's State of the Union.

The costs of the war and the deficit probably will preclude Bush from announcing expensive new programs.

As he did last year, when he said America was "addicted to oil," Bush is expected to bemoan U.S. reliance on foreign sources of energy and express support for alternative fuels.

The president is expected to challenge Congress to fix Social Security's long-term solvency problem, preserve tax cuts, join him in balancing the budget within five years and work to make the costs of the war more transparent in the federal budget.