Previewing Obama's "State Of The Economy"
That explains why he's doing it.
The White House isn't calling this a State of the Union Address, but that's what it amounts to: the state of the economy – which is grim.
"I think what you'll hear tonight is the President talk about the tough times that we're in, the path that we have to take to put this economy back on track and get people back to work," says White House spokesman Robert Gibbs .
Nothing is more presidential than the elegant ceremony of a Joint Session of Congress. It's always a dramatic moment when the Sergeant-at-Arms enters the House chamber and bellows: "Madame Speaker – the President of the United States."
Even unpopular presidents receive what sounds like a thunderous ovation. So for a new president doing a Joint Session for the first time, before a Congress solidly in the hands of his own party, and still enjoying the benefits of a honeymoon period, Mr. Obama's reception will be deafening.
He needs to appear as a strong and confident leader as he lays out his strategy to slow the recession and turn it back toward economic growth.
"He'll talk about the recovery plan that's now in law and is already beginning to save and create jobs in this country," said Gibbs in a CBS News interview this morning with Maggie Rodriquez of The Early Show.
"He'll talk extensively about a financial stability plan that will get banks lending to families and small businesses again; a home foreclosure plan that helps responsible homeowners avoid foreclosure as well as a plan to re-regulate the financial industry so that we don't find ourselves facing this situation ever again," Gibbs said.
The President will also be previewing his strategy for the federal budget for the 2010 fiscal year that begins October 1. Monday, he pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term in office.
"This will not be easy," he told his fiscal responsibility summit. "It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we've long neglected."
Further, he's vowing to be fully open and honest about the government's spending practices and the magnitude of the deficit – a practice he made clear has been in short supply in the past..
"For too long, our budget process in Washington has been an exercise in deception," said Mr. Obama. Without naming names, he said the budgets that have gone before amount to "a series of accounting tricks to hide the extent of our spending and the shortfalls in our revenue" fabricated in the hope "the American people wont notice."
He knows there is no sure or quick path to economic recovery. But he needs to exude confidence. And despite republican opposition to his approach on bailouts and spending, Congress as a whole will follow his lead because it isn't sure of the way out either.
Tonight's overriding goal for Mr. Obama is to secure the confidence of the American people that his strategy is the right way to go.
And he starts out three-quarters of the way there. The CBS News – New York Times poll out yesterday shows that 76% of those surveyed are "somewhat" or "very confident" that Mr. Obama will make the right decisions on the economy. And the survey shows a majority are willing to give him at least two years to produce results.
Mark Knoller is a CBS News White House correspondent.