By Carol E. Lee, Peter Nicholas
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama is traveling Wednesday to promote the build-the-middle-class message he laid out in his State of the Union address, while House Republicans meet to set their own 2014 agenda.
The president heads to a Costco in Lanham, Md., to press Congress to raise the federal minimum wage, a central part of his call for narrowing the gap between rich and poor. He later uses a steel plant in Pittsburgh as a backdrop for fleshing out plans to create a new retirement-savings account.
Mr. Obama, who took a hit in the polls last year after the botched rollout of his new health law, has promised to get out of Washington more and engage directly with the public.
Republicans, who complain that Mr. Obama is going too far by carrying out some of his ideas through executive order instead of legislation, offered no signs Tuesday night of embracing the president's economic agenda. Many are still intent on criticizing the health law, which so far has made six million people eligible for Medicaid and prompted the enrollment of three million people through private-insurance plans and given the GOP something to rally against.
"He doesn't recognize that he is actually part of the problem in terms of incredibly slow economic growth," Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.), the House GOP deputy whip, told a Chicago radio station on Wednesday.
House Republicans are gathering for a retreat in eastern Maryland that will test whether a burst of unity at the end of last year can continue in 2014.
Mr. Obama's speech essentially was a manifesto designed to inject new vigor into his languishing agenda and guide his presidency through the partisan divide in the capital. The goal was to position the president as the champion of struggling Americans fed up with the bickering in Washington, marshaling an array of policy proposals aimed at helping them save more, earn more and find work in a tough economy.
"Corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better. But average wages have barely budged," Mr. Obama said. "Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled.…Our job is to reverse these trends."
The president told the joint session of Congress that "I'm eager to work with all of you," but his message was clear: "Wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that's what I'm going to do."
In vowing to act unilaterally, Mr. Obama was implicitly pointing to the limits of his ability to enact policy: Executive orders tend to have less reach and less permanence than legislation. Mr. Obama laid out a long list of proposals that would require congressional approval, including raising the minimum wage and changing the immigration system. But getting lawmakers to go along likely would be difficult.
Republican lawmakers warned of presidential overreach and cast Mr. Obama as having given up on trying to compromise with Congress. Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.) said Mr. Obama "ought to work with us on bipartisan measures," such as making changes to the 2010 health-care law and approving the long-stalled Keystone XL pipeline. "Instead, he's talking about taking unilateral action on a whole range of things."
Mr. Obama said Tuesday that he would sign an executive order in the coming weeks to raise the federal minimum wage for employees on new federal contracts, a move that would affect a fraction of low-wage workers—janitors and laundry workers on military bases, among others, the White House said. In a second action independent of Congress, he said he would create a new retirement-savings program coordinated by the government, a further bid to appeal to Americans' persistent sense of economic insecurity.
At the same time, he acknowledged he can't achieve certain goals alone and called on lawmakers to push through various proposals that have stalled in Congress. He urged the House and Senate to send him an overhaul of the immigration system, raise and expand the earned income tax credit for low-wage workers without children, and raise the federal minimum wage for all eligible workers to $10.10 an hour, up from $7.25.
"Opportunity is who we are," Mr. Obama said. "And the defining project of our generation must be to restore that promise."
The majority of the speech focused on domestic affairs, but Mr. Obama touched briefly on foreign policy. He indicated the U.S. ultimately would like to leave troops in Afghanistan after 2014, assuming an impasse in negotiations with the Afghan government can be resolved.
He also highlighted his administration's diplomatic efforts with Iran, saying that an agreement to curtail Tehran's nuclear program "may not succeed" but threatening to veto any of the legislation in Congress that would enact additional sanctions.
Mr. Obama renewed his call for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and asked Congress to do away with barriers on moving detainees out of Guantanamo so the U.S. can shutter the prison this year.
The president asked lawmakers to tackle a number of his priorities. He called on legislators to overhaul the tax code and use the savings to fund infrastructure projects, —a proposal he has made before that has gained little traction. He pressed the House and Senate to pass trade pacts that some members of his own Democratic Party oppose.
Mr. Obama's speech touched on issues that have divided the two parties. He declared "climate change is a fact" after saying he would act alone to increase fuel-efficiency standards for heavy-duty trucks this year.
He also tried to show how his health-care overhaul has been successful, after a botched rollout that has heightened the country's doubts about the law. At the same time, he challenged Republicans to do more than complain.
"If you have specific plans to cut costs, cover more people, increase choice, tell America what you'd do differently," he said. "But let's not have another 40-something votes to repeal a law that's already helping millions of Americans."
The new retirement accounts would provide a guaranteed return, White House officials said. Eventually, people could convert them into traditional retirement-savings vehicles such as a 401(k) or an individual retirement account.
Mr. Obama's executive order on the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors is an attempt to lead the way as he presses employers to act voluntarily to lift minimum pay for their workers. It also is an opening salvo on an issue that Democrats plan to highlight in midterm elections.
Many Republicans oppose a minimum-wage increase, saying it would prompt employers to cut back on hiring, hurting low-wage workers. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said that when minimum-wage legislation comes to the Senate floor in the coming weeks, Republicans would offer alternatives that they believe would do more to create jobs.
Absent congressional action, Mr. Obama's executive order raising the wage for employees of federal contractors is an attempt to lead the way as he presses employers to act voluntarily to lift the minimum wage. It also is an opening salvo in an election-year push by Democrats to raise the federal minimum wage for all eligible workers. The White House has planned for months to make the minimum wage an issue in November's midterm elections.
An objective of the speech was to show that Mr. Obama isn't simply a player on the Washington scene but rather a president with a broad vision and independence from a Congress that polls show to be unpopular. It also was part of an effort by Mr. Obama to regain traction amid low job-approval ratings and pessimism about his abilities.
Many Democrats praised Mr. Obama's speech—"a practical agenda with specific ideas," said Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia—but Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he was concerned by the president's plans to bypass Congress, if necessary. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) said she was disappointed that Mr. Obama didn't call for major changes to limit the surveillance of Americans' phone records, while Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D., N.D.) said she would have welcomed support for Keystone XL or "finding a viable path forward for coal."
John Engler, president of the Business Roundtable trade group, said there were plenty of proposals in the speech that corporations could rally behind, such as changes to immigration law, trade authority and tax-code changes. But he said it remains to be seen whether policy makers can bridge differences.
Nearly six in 10 people said they were uncertain, worried or pessimistic about his doing a good job in the remainder of his presidency. Some four in 10 surveyed said they were optimistic or hopeful.
"There's much in the message that we could work with. The question is almost 100% on the execution," he said.
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–Siobhan Hughes, Jared A. Favole, Michael R. Crittenden and Janet Hook contributed to this article.
Write to Carol E. Lee at carol.lee@wsj.com and Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com
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