With his public-approval ratings at near-record lows, President Bush faced a relatively unenthusiastic crowd in the newly Democratic-led Congress for his State of the Union address Tuesday night (January 23). He sought to shift the focus home in a 50-minute speech that also made an uncharacteristically humble plea to Congress to give his Iraq strategy a chance.

Even before Bush took the stage, the proposals he was planning to serve up Tuesday night were meeting strong resistance, especially his call to alter tax policies to help Americans without health insurance. In addition to grumbling from members of Congress, employers and labor unions decried the plan, which was likely to face an uphill battle with the Democratic majority in Congress (see "Democrats Control Both Houses — What Are They Planning To Do With Them?").

Bush opened his address by congratulating the Democratic majority, saying, "Congress has changed, but our responsibilities have not. ... We are not the first to come here with government divided and uncertainty in the air. Like many before us, we can work through our differences, and we can achieve big things for the American people. Our citizens don't much care which side of the aisle we sit on — as long as we are willing to cross that aisle when there is work to be done. Our job is to make life better for our fellow Americans, and help them build a future of hope and opportunity — and this is the business before us tonight."

In a time-honored tradition for presidents facing unpopular wars at home, Bush sought to shift some of the focus to domestic issues in what was the president's first address in front of a Democrat-controlled Congress. As in past years, the president focused on proposals to develop alternative fuels to combat global warming and foreign-oil dependence. He also made a renewed call to overhaul the nation's immigration laws in the speech, which was titled "President Bush's Agenda for Spreading Hope and Opportunity in America."

The Tuesday night crowd was not the most inviting audience Bush has faced. The applause was noticeably shorter, less exuberant and, during a long stretch in which he warned of the dangers of abandoning Iraq, almost nonexistent.

But there was a much more significant difference between this year's State of the Union and those of years past: For the first time in history, the seat behind the president was occupied by a woman, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Despite Bush's warm opening — in which he evoked the pride her late father, Congressman Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., would have felt in seeing his daughter take on her historic role — the Congresswoman did not applaud nearly as much as her predecessor, Republican Dennis Hastert, used to when he stood in the same seat in previous years.

Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave Bush a swift answer. "While the president continues to ignore the will of the country, Congress will not ignore this president's failed policy," they said in a joint statement after his address. "His plan will receive an up-or-down vote in both the House and Senate, and we will continue to hold him accountable for changing course in Iraq."

One of Bush's most controversial new plans appeared to be one that would help states provide health coverage for uninsured people by redirecting federal aid from mostly public hospitals. The plan is purportedly aimed at avoiding extra costs to the federal government at a time when the White House is trying to balance the budget. The plan would give a tax break to the majority of families with employer coverage and to the 17 million people who purchase insurance on their own, according to The Washington Post. Bush said that with his reform, more than 100 million Americans now covered by employer-provided insurance will have lower tax bills.

Democrats, however, have contended that the plan would result in tax increases, and financial service Bloomberg said workers whose health insurance costs more than the standard deduction would see a tax increase. With some Americans facing higher tax bills as a result, the plan appears to be the first major proposal of a tax increase from a president who has consistently made tax cuts his primary focus. Labor leaders criticized it as putting an undue burden on the middle class.

The other health-care plan he proposed would redirect spending from Medicare, Medicaid and other federal programs to new grants to help states ensure basic health insurance for many low-income citizens.

One of the most ambitious programs Bush proposed was to increase the development and use of alternative-energy sources and a call for improvement of car fuel standards, which have stayed almost flat for more than 20 years. He also called for a massive increase in the amount of ethanol that is mixed with gasoline, doubling it to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012, though critics have charged that corn-based ethanol will only marginally reduce America's dependence on foreign oil and won't do much to increase energy efficiency.

Part of the energy policy, "Twenty in Ten," calls for a reduction of U.S. gasoline usage by 20 percent in the next decade; funding for clean, lower-carbon energy; and $179 million for his Biofuels Initiative to accelerate commercial development of cellulosic ethanol, which can be made from switch grass. The plan also called for increasing domestic-oil production in what he termed "environmentally sensitive ways."

"America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil," Bush said. "These technologies will help us become better stewards of the environment — and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change." The latter sentence marked the first time a Republican president has used the term "climate change" in a State of the Union address.

Bush repeated his desire to overhaul the country's immigration laws and institute a guest-worker program, an idea that has more support among Democrats than Republicans (see "President Bush Orders 21,500 More Troops To Iraq; Democrats Blast Plan"). "We need to uphold the great tradition of the melting pot that welcomes and assimilates new arrivals," Bush said. "And we need to resolve the status of the illegal immigrants who are already in our country — without animosity and without amnesty."

He also asked for an extension of his controversial No Child Left Behind education act. Bush proposed changes to make it more flexible, seemingly in reaction to complaints from some educators who have said the standards the act applies are uneven. The call to reauthorize No Child Left Behind was met with tepid applause and was very clearly shunned by most of the Democrats in the room.

Bush is facing historically low approval ratings, which have fallen from an all-time high of near 90 percent following 9/11 to 28 percent in a New York Times/ CBS poll conducted January 18-21. More than twice as many Americans — 64 percent — disapprove of the job he's doing. The previous low was a 24 percent approval rating for former President Richard Nixon in a Gallup poll conducted just before his resignation.

The address also came two weeks after Bush announced his plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq (see "The Immigration Debate: Behind The Protests"). In the time since, opposition to the troop "surge" has grown from 61 percent to 65 percent, according to a Washington Post/ ABC News poll.

The second half of Bush's address was less about proposals than broader themes of security and the continued threat of terrorism at home and abroad. "In the sixth year since our nation was attacked, I wish I could report to you that the dangers have ended. They have not," Bush said solemnly. "And so it remains the policy of this government to use every lawful and proper tool of intelligence, diplomacy, law enforcement and military action to do our duty, to find these enemies and to protect the American people."

As he has in the past, Bush repeatedly invoked 9/11 as a defining moment in the country. And though the swaggering, blunt language warning hostile regimes found in past State of the Union addresses was gone, Bush referred to Iran four times and made mention of both Sunni and Shia radicals as potential threats the U.S. must face.

"This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we are in," he said. "Every one of us wishes that this war were over and won. Yet it would not be like us to leave our promises un-kept, our friends abandoned and our own security at risk. Ladies and gentlemen: On this day, at this hour, it is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle. So let us find our resolve and turn events toward victory." He used that language to make a plea to Congress to support his troop increase and went on to illustrate a grim picture of what he said could happen if the U.S. were to abandon the war.

"If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides," he warned. "We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran and Sunni extremists aided by al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country — and in time the entire region could be drawn into the conflict. For America, this is a nightmare scenario. For the enemy, this is the objective. Chaos is their greatest ally in this struggle. And out of chaos in Iraq would emerge an emboldened enemy with new safe havens ... new recruits ... new resources ... and an even greater determination to harm America. ... We went into this largely united — in our assumptions and in our convictions. And whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure. Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq — and I ask you to give it a chance to work. And I ask you to support our troops in the field — and those on their way."