W.H.: Obama to present "common sense" SOTU

At what he described as a "make-or-break moment for the middle class," White House senior adviser David Plouffe said that President Barack Obama will present "a blueprint for how to build an economy that was built to last.

"We saw what happened when we had an economy that was built on bad debt and financial instruments. That didn't work. It caused a crash and we're still recovering from it. So we know what we need to do here," Plouffe said on "CBS This Morning." "2011 was the best job-producing year since 2005. But given the hole that the recession caused, we've got so much more work to do."

In a preview of Tuesday's address, Plouffe said the president will lay out "common sense ideas" intended to strengthen the nation's economy recovery: "Investing in American manufacturing; making sure we are seizing a new era of American energy; working on the skills and educations for our workers: and a renewal of American values."

Republicans leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner, have said they expect the State of the Union to be a "rehash" of ideas that "will not fly" in the House.

Plouffe responded that he hoped Republicans "will actually listen to the ideas tonight. These are ideas many of them traditionally have been embraced by both parties, that are common sense ideas. Having the wealthy pay their fair share is something more and more Republicans are actually gravitating to, to help solve our deficit problems and invest where we need to."

CBS television and CBSNews.com will have live coverage of the State of the Union address, and the Republicans' response, tonight beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET.

Plouffe said that last year - despite its gridlock and partisanship - produced a tax cut, and a trade deal with South Korea that helps sell more American-built cars overseas.

"But there's no question that as the American people look in that chamber tonight, they don't want a repeat of last year. And so even though this is an election year, we have to find every opportunity to make progress, not just on the economy as a whole, which is so important, but also specifically how do we strengthen the middle class? How do we get more people [into] the middle class?"

"Ronald Reagan once made famous this notion, 'Are you better off than you were four years ago?' which is a question many Americans might want to ask now," said Charlie Rose. He asked Plouffe if the Obama administration is happy to have the upcoming election be a referendum on the president's performance rather than a referendum on promises made in tonight's State of the Union?

"Well, listen, we're happy to have this [be] a referendum on what we've done," said Plouffe. "Let's remember we were in something that rivaled the Great Depression, and that wasn't just an accident. There were policies that caused it. So do you want to go back to those policies? Do you want to let Wall Street write its own rules, have your entire tax and economy polices skewed towards the wealthy and somehow hope magically that it 'trickles down'? There were policies that caused it, and people don't want to go back to that."

For the complete interview click on the video player above.