Bush to address Social Security, immigration in State of the Union

WASHINGTON -- President Bush is ready to challenge Congress to approve a stack of politically divisive measures he has proposed before without success, from major changes in Social Security to a loosening of the nation's immigration laws.\nBush will go before Congress and the nation with his annual State of the Union message Wednesday night with the lowest approval rating of any second-term president since Richard Nixon. Yet he is in a feisty mood, insisting that his re-election has given him a mandate for change and political capital to spend in pursuing his agenda.\nEven though Republicans control both houses of Congress, Bush's proposals face major obstacles. Democrats are deeply suspicious of the president, feeling he has ignored them and refused to compromise.\nRepublicans are wary about Bush's ambitious Social Security plan because of the political risks of tampering with one of the government's most popular programs. Facing re-election next year as Bush moves toward lame duck status, GOP lawmakers can't be counted on for rock-solid unity.\nThe poisonous relationship between Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill also complicates Bush's task.\n"We have the most polarized Congress maybe since the 1930s," said Terry Madonna, a professor and pollster at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. "I don't think there's any way Democrats are going to roll over on these issues that they feel very strongly about. Bipartisanship is virtually obsolete in Congress."\nAnother problem that could weaken Bush's hand is Iraq. If the situation there deteriorates, it could sap the president's political strength.\nBush will use the State of the Union address to update the nation on Iraq after Sunday's successful elections, discussing the way forward, aides said.\nHe also will appeal to other nations to "seize on this opportunity to find ways to show tangible public support" for Iraqis and their government, said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he didn't want to upstage the president.\nFirst lady Laura Bush, meanwhile, said Tuesday that among those sitting with her in the House gallery as special guests during her husband's speech will be two voters, one from Iraq and another from Afghanistan, who participated in those countries' elections.\nShe told NBC's "Today" show they would serve as "a sign that people the world over want to live in freedom and want to have a democracy in their country."\nThe key ingredients of Bush's domestic package are repackaged from years past.\n"These are oldies, golden oldies," said Norman Ornstein, a political analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "Much of what is on the agenda in domestic policy are things that made it around the track in the first four years but didn't get to the finish line.\n"Deciding that you want to go for a big hit like Social Security is a change, although we're getting mixed signals in terms of how much he really is going to push for this and how bold it will be," Ornstein said. "I think an expectation that we're going to get a burst of legislative activity would be a misguided expectation."\nSocial Security restructuring, Bush's top proposal, has been around since before he entered the White House. In 2000, he campaigned on the idea of allowing younger workers to divert some of their Social Security payroll taxes into private investment accounts, a move that might offer higher returns but also would deplete money for guaranteed benefits in the future.\nBush raised the idea in his first address to a joint session of Congress and has renewed it in every State of the Union since. He never put any political muscle behind it, and Congress ignored it. The president says this time will be different, that it will be his No. 1 priority and that he will provide political cover for Republicans willing to stick their necks out.\nDemocrats are equally determined to block the president's initiative, which calls for partially privatizing Social Security by adding individual investment accounts to the government's nearly 70-year-old retirement system.