Washington ? President Bush, saddled with war for most of his presidency, sought to focus the public’s attention Tuesday on an agenda of “American competitiveness,” with can-do initiatives such as preparing young people to compete economically and an exhortation to wean an America “addicted to oil.”

In his fifth nationally televised State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress, the president outlined a more limited agenda than he has in the past, replacing last year’s failed promise to overhaul Social Security with a new pledge to train 70,000 more math and science teachers and cut U.S. dependence on Mideast oil by 75 percent.

Attempting to connect his commitment to fighting terrorism abroad with his emphasis on freer trade among nations, Bush warned against “economic retreat,” calling on the nation to resist “isolationism and protectionism” in a world competing for work, particularly the manufacturing jobs that Americans once claimed for themselves.

Bush was attempting not only to resuscitate his own political standing, but also to revive American confidence in prospects for the future at a time of lingering war, layoffs and high fuel prices. “We must never give in to the belief that America is in decline, or that our culture is doomed to unravel,” Bush said.

President Bush delivers his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, in Washington, D.C.

Bush set longer-term goals as well. A one-time Texas oil prospector, Bush proposed a target of replacing 75 percent of American oil imports from the Middle East with alternate sources such as ethanol by 2025.

Broad plan

Bush proposed all of this against the backdrop of an unpopular and costly war in Iraq and a spate of manufacturing layoffs and pension closures, a meld of worries that the White House acknowledges has stoked a broad-based anxiety.

“Sometimes it can seem that history is turning in a wide arc, toward an unknown shore,” Bush said in a speech long on concept and short on detail, drafted to portray a sense of vision and optimism in the president’s policies rather than a specific blueprint.

The prospects for the president’s plans are constrained by an already strained federal budget. The White House estimated the cost of its proposals to make the nation more competitive at $136 billion over 10 years. That included $50 billion for a doubling of federal spending on scientific research. As Bush prepares to unveil the 2007 budget Monday, the projected deficit for 2006 will exceed $400 billion.

“Over the past five years, we’ve gone from huge surpluses to massive deficits,” said newly elected Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, delivering the Democratic Party’s official response. Maintaining that the president’s education reforms have “wreaked havoc” in public schools and that health care costs have spiraled out of control, Kaine offered a thematic drumbeat: “There is a better way.”

The president’s speech, punctuated by applause led by Republicans, drew a spontaneous round of cheers from Democrats when Bush observed that Congress had not acted on his proposal last year to “save Social Security” by creating private retirement accounts.

Bush made his new pitch for pocketbook issues at the start of a midterm congressional election year in which the Republican Party is trying to maintain control of Congress.

Bush’s chief political adviser, Karl Rove, has encouraged his party to campaign on national security and tax reduction. And the president, calling on Congress to make his first-term tax cuts permanent, devoted a sizeable share of Tuesday’s address to underscoring his commitment to success in Iraq. He also mounted a brief and pointed defense of domestic surveillance without warrants that he authorized after the terrorist assaults of Sept. 11, 2001.

In Iraq to win

While voicing hope that more American troops would come home as Iraqi forces take command, Bush again refrained from setting any timeline for a conflict that has cost more than 2,200 American lives, maintaining there is neither peace nor honor in “retreat.”

“Fellow citizens, we are in this fight to win, and we are winning,” Bush said to applause. “The road of victory is the road that will take our troops home.”

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The White House also is intent on promoting the president’s kitchen-table agenda of better education for Americans in a changing world, making health care more accessible and helping American motorists to reduce their dependence on oil. Bush will spend the next few weeks fleshing out his plans in talks across the country, starting today in Nashville, Tenn.

Yet Bush still must contend with public approval that has hovered in the low 40 percent range for months as well as a perception that his presidency is struggling on some fronts. When the Gallup Poll asked on Jan. 20-22 if Bush’s presidency “has been a success or failure” since the start of his first term, 52 percent said failure and 46 percent success. Asked the same question about his second term, 58 percent said failure and 38 percent success.

“Given that the economy is doing pretty well, he really is not getting any credit for it. That’s because we’re at war,” said John Geer, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “The public rewards peace, prosperity and (political) moderation. Right now he’s got one of those things going for him.”