start treaty, far fewer nuclear weapons and launchers will be deployed. because we rallied the world, nuclear materials are being locked down on every continent so they never fall into the hands of terrorists. ( applause ) because of a diplomatic effort

to insist that iran meet its obligations, the iranian government now faces tougher sanctions, tighter sanctions than ever before. and on the korean peninsula, we stand with our ally south korea and insist that north korea keeps its commitment to abandon nuclear weapons. ( applause ) this is just a part of how we are shaping a world that favors peace and prosperity. with our european allies, we revitalized nato and increased our cooperation on everything from counterterrorism to missile defense. we have reset our relationship with russia, strengthened asian alliances, and built new partnerships with nations like india. this march, i will travel to brazil, chile and el salvador to forge new alliances across the americas. around the globe, we are standing with those who take

responsibility. helping farmers grow more food. supporting doctors who care for the sick. and combatting the corruption that can rot a society and rob people of opportunity. now recent events have shown us that what sets us apart must not just be our power. it must also be the purpose behind it. in south sudan with our assistance, the people were finally able to vote for independence after years of war. ( applause ) thousands lined up before dawn. people danced in the streets. one man who lost four of his brothers at war summed up the scene around him: "this was a battlefield for most of my life. now we want to free... now we want to be free." we saw that same desire to be

free in tunisia where the will of the people proved more powerful than the writ of a dictator. and tonight let us be clear, the united states of america stands with the people of tunisia and supports the democratic aspirations of all people. ( applause ) we must never forget that the things we've struggled for and fought for live in the hearts of people everywhere. and we must always remember that the americans who have born the greatest burden in this struggle are the men and women who serve our country. ( applause )

tonight let us speak with one voice in reaffirming that our nation is united in support of our troops and their families. let us serve them as well as they have served us. by giving them the equipment they need, by providing them with the care and benefits that they have earned, and by enlisting our veterans in the great task of building our own nation. our troops come from every

corner of this country.6/ they are black, white, latino, asian, native american. they are christian and hindu, jewish and muslim. and, yes, we know that some of them are gay. starting this year no american will be forbidden from serving the country they love because of who they love. ( applause ) and with that change, i call on all of our college campuses to open their doors to our military recruiters and the rotc. it is time to leave behind the divisive battles of the past. it is time to move forward as one nation. ( applause )

we should have no illusions about the work ahead of us. reforming our schools, changing the way we use energy, reducing our deficit. none of this will be easy. all of it will take time. and it will be harder because we will argue about everything. the cost. the details. the letter of every law. of course some countries don't have this problem. if the central government wants a railroad, they build a railroad. no matter how many homes get bull dozed. if they don't want a bad story in the newspaper, it doesn't get written.

and yet as contentious and frustrating and messy as our democracy can sometimes be, i know there isn't a person here who would trade places with any other nation on earth. ( applause ) ( cheers and applause ) we may have differences in policy but we all believe in the rights enshrined in our constitution. we may have different opinions, but we believe in the same promise that says this is a place where you can make it if you try. we may have different backgrounds, but we believe in the same dream that says this

is a country where anything is possible. no matter who you are. no matter where you come from. that dream is why i can stand here before you tonight. that dream is why a working class kid from scranton can sit behind me. ( applause ) that dream is why someone who began by sweeping the floors of his father's cincinatti bar can preside as speaker of the house in the greatest nation on earth. ( cheers and applause ) that dream, that american dream, is what drove the allen

brothers to reinvent their roofing company for a new era. it's what drove those students at forsyth tech to learn a new skill and work towards the future. and that dream is a story of a small business owner named brandon fisher. brandon started a company in berlin, pennsylvania, that specializes in a new kind of drilling technology. one day last summer, he saw the news that halfway across the world 33 men were trapped in a chilean mine and no one knew how to save them. but brandon thought his company could help. so he designed a rescue that would come to be known as plan- b. his employees workd around the clock to manufacture the necessary drilling equipment. and brandon left for chile.

along with others he began drilling a 2,000-foot hole into the ground, working three or four days at a time without any sleep. 37 days later, plap plan-b succeeded and the miners were rescued. ( applause ) but because he didn't want all the attention, brandon wasn't there when the miners emerged. he had already gone back home, back to work on his next project. later one of his employees said of the rescue, "we proved that center rock is a little company but we do big things." ( applause ) we do big things.

from the earliest days of our founding, america has been the story of ordinary people who dare to dream. that's how we win the future. we are a nation that says, "i might not have a lot of money but i have this great idea for a new company. i might not come from a family of college graduates, but i will be the first to get my degree. i might not know those people in trouble, but i think i can help them and i need to try. i'm not sure how we'll reach that better place beyond the horizon, but i know we'll get there. i know we will." we do big things. ( applause ) the idea of america endures. our destiny remains our choice. and tonight, more than two venturis later, it's because of our people that our future is hopeful, our journey goes forward, and the state of our

union is strong. thank you, god bless you, and may god bless the united states of america. ( cheers and applause ) >> lehrer: there we have it. the state of the union address by president barack obama. just over an hour. i'm joined here again with michael gerson and mark shields. they've been listening to the speech with me. what did you think, michael? >> i thought it was a sober economic speech. covered a lot of ground. effective in a certain way. it covered a lot of topics, everything from high speed rail to better cell phone coverage. in the great tradition of the state of the union address. but it reminded me very much a clinton speech from the 1990s.

those were very effective speeches. there was one thing that was lacking though. unlike clinton there was no moment where he said the era of big government is over. it was pretty unapologetic in his activism. that sets up oddly in a very bipartisan speech a large contrast with the republicans, ideological contrast. they think we're in a fiscal crisis that requires a visiting of the role of government itself. that's really not what obama talked about in his speech. >> lehrer: mark? >> i thought the speech had two central themes to it. one of which was not surprising. that is education. a democratic president and particularly this democratic president. the other was surprising, and that was america is open to business. that's who we are. we're a country of entrepreneurs. we're a country of ingenuity. michael is right. he did make reference to but

didn't pause and emphasize government's role in the transcontinental railroad and using the sputnik analogy. he acknowledged and asserted government's importance but he celebrated american entrepreneurial stories and success and said we can outcompete anybody and sort of recast it in a way... i thought it was more reaganesque in terms not of delivery but of evoking our current confidence or what should be our confidence from our past achievements. using that. i thought in that sense it was surprising to me but in many respects it's a speech that one would not have expected from barack obama election night of 2008. i think it's an acknowledgment of the realities not only of this election but the economic realities of the country. >> lehrer: did you see that? did you hear....

>> i think there was a switch i mean from a stimulus-oriented public job creation, which would have been a year ago to a very business-oriented speech. i'm not sure that's reagan. i think it's more like clinton. a lot of activism there. research and development. we're going to develop new clean energy and do all these things. essentially the government's catalytic role in the private sector which i think is different from the message that the president had adopted before. i was a little bit disappointed that there wasn't more on the deficit. i don't think there was any policy breakthrough here. he talked about a five-year freeze but he talked in last year's state of the union about a three-year freeze. he talked about tax increases that he's been talking about since the primaries. there was really no specifics on social security or medicare. maybe that will come in the budget. maybe there will be more when it comes but it was not a real emphasis of the speech. >> lehrer: what about the spirit and the tone about what the president said and how he

said it? >> i thought he was quite serious. i thought the chamber was quite serious tonight. gone was that unwelcome puppetry from the past where our side jumps up and then sits on our hands and the other side jumps up. i think mark udall's bringing people together, it made me a little less willing to be part of the herd jumping up on my side to cheer each time if i'm sitting with somebody from the other party. i noticed, you know, john kerry sitting john mccain. patty murray the chairman of the democratic senate campaign committee of washington sitting with jon corn inthe republican chairman from the campaign committee from texas. there's a little less willingness to do it. i think maybe it took a little bit of the, what we come to expect, the pep rally aspect of it, of the speech. >> it was a little lower energy level. but as a former speech writer, it puts more emphasis on the

words themselves instead of the up-and-down of the emotions of the chamber. i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. i think.... >> lehrer: people were listening to it. >> exactly. the president is very good at explaining. explaining how our economy has changed. explaining why we need to do research and development, explaining... and he brings the listener along in a logical way. i think it's one of his real skills. i think he's sometimes good at inspiration but is actually better at explanation. this speech had a lot of kind of serious economic explanation. >> i agree with michael. what amazed me was the applause lines were on education. i went through and kind of marked down. i mean when he went through the business of... we must teach our children that it's not just the winner of the super bowl that deserves to be celebrated but the winner of the science fair.

>> lehrer: hold on one second, mark. i just want people to see the return... what we've been watching there as the president leaves and he is now signing autographs. he's almost to that sergeant of arms of the congress area who is going to take him out in a moment. it is almost over. and then in about five minutes we're going to get after that we're going to get the official republican response from congressman paul ryan of wisconsin who is chairman of the bunk it committee. he's going to be speaking from the capitol in the budget committee room. there in that very... in the house. we'll be hearing from him in a few moments. go ahead. >> there were a succession of applause lines, the people who educate our children with the

same level of respect. if you want to make a difference in the life of a child become a teacher. your country needs you. i mean those were not applause lines most of the times. they are certainly positive lines and get a positive reaction. but they got big big hands tonight. >> lehrer: how do you read that? why do you think that happened? >> well, i mean, i hope it's a recognition of the importance of education and the importance of teachers and the importance of values. you know, i think that's... and it's a recognition of america's competition in the world. i mean, i'll be honest with you. every speech contains something in it, gee, i never knew that. what i didn't know is that we were ninth in the world in college graduates. i likely assumed we were still in the top three or whatever. now we're ninth. he said we're going to restore ourselves by the end of this decade to be number one in

college graduates. that got another big applause line. we get the expected applause and deservedly so for those who serve in the u.s. military. that is reliable, predictable and totally legitimate. it surprised me tonight in the sort of inteváuç in a night when there weren't that many standing applause. >> lehrer: were you surprised at all by the reaction, the various reactions from the members? do you think, michael, it was affected by this kind of date situation that existed, that they were not in herd form? >> i think that that's probably exactly right. i mean, when you got a group of people in a certain section, they feed one another. there's a cycle of enthusiasm. this was different. but i actually don't think it was inferior. it's a different feel. but it was a sober speech. a sober moment. you know, i think it was

appropriate in this case. >> lehrer: then i take it what you're saying is that you expected or thought there should be more specifics about the deficit and about the budget rather than education and future and innovation which he put the number one emphasis on. >> i do think that's a serious test of credibility moving forward is just, you know, and a contrast. you will see paul ryan, his remarks are distributed now. his is a speech about the role of government in american society. and an argument that we're in a financial crisis, an emergency, that requires us to completely rethink the way that government acts, its size and role. the president didn't have that tonight. i mean he talked about expanding high speed rail service to 80% of the american pub. that's a different set of priorities. so there's going... even though both of them will be very civil and very bipartisan,

you're going to see a very large contrast in philosophy. so tonight... this is a good thing from my perspective, you're going to see one philosophy and another one very, very different. a clear choice. i'm not sure who is reading the american public better. the president may well win that contest. but it's a clear contrast. >> lehrer: clear contrast. >> i think there will be. i mean it's the difference being the chairman of the house budget committee, especially as a first-time chair, than it is being president of the united states. the way the president cast his argument was in terms of national competitiveness. we are in a race with china and india, and japan and other countries that obviously have high speed rail and that... the greater penetration of the internet into the homes of south korea than there are in the united states. he was talking about government's role in that.

should there be a government role in it? i think that is a legitimate and probably overdue debate. you know, i think we'll start to see the outlines of it tonight. >> i just think he did a better job in explaining how we're going to compete with china than ou how we're going to be avoid being greece. both of them are quite important. i think the republicans will emphasize the second element more tonight. >> the other thing, jim, just in response to michael. how little applause there was for his budget. that was the most tepid response of anything. >> the five-year? >> yeah, the five year we're going to freeze. there was no enthusiasm on the democratic side. no response on the republican side. the old rule in politics that general... everybody.... >> lehrer: just don't cut my area. all right. we're going to be back, michael and mark, in just a moment or in a few moments because now we're going to go

to the republican response. it's from republican congressman paul ryan of wisconsin. he is chairman of the house budget committee. he will in fact play a very key role in the g.o.p. drive to cut federal spending this year. he's going to speak in a moment here from the budget committee's hearing room. >> good evening. i'm congressman paul ryan from wisconsin. chairman here at the house budget committee. president obama just addressed a congressional chamber filled with many new faces. one face we did not see tonight was that of our friend and colleague congresswoman gabrielle giffords of arizona. we all miss gabby and her cheerful spirit. we are praying for her to return to the house chamber. earlier this month president obama spoke movingly at a memorial event for the six people who died on that violent morning in tucson. still, there are no words that can lift the sorrow that now engulfs the families and the friends of the fallen.

what we can do is assure them that the nation is praying for them, that in the words of the psalmist the lord heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds. and that over time grace will replace grief. as gabby continues to make encouraging progress we must keep her and the others in our thoughts as we attend to the work now before us. tonight the president focused a lot of attention on our economy in general. and on our deficit and debt in particular. he was right to do so. and some of his words were reassuring. as chairman of the house budget committee, i assure you that we want to work with the president to restrain federal spending. in one of our first acts in the new majority, house republicans voted to cut congress's own budget. just today the house voted to restore the spending discipline that washington sorely needs. the reason is simple. a few years ago reducing spending was important. today it's imperative. here's why. we face a crushing burden of

debt. the debt will soon eclipse our entire economy and grow to catastrophic levels in the years ahead. on this current path when my three children who are now 6, 7 and 8 years old are raising their own children, the federal government will double in size and so will the taxes they pay. no economy can sustain such high levels of debt and taxation. the next generation willen her it a stagnant economy and a diminished country. frankly, it's one of my greatest concerns as a parent. i know many of you feel the same way. our debt is the product of acts by many presidents and many congresses over many years. no one person or party is responsible for it. there's no doubt the president came into office facing a severe fiscal and economic situation. unfortunately instead of restoring the fundamental of economic growth he engaged in a stimulus spending spree that not only failed to deliver on his promise to create jobs but

also plunged us even deeper into debt. the facts are clear. since taking office, president obama has signed into law spending increases of nearly 25% for domestic government agencies and 84% increase when you include the failed stimulus. all of this new government spending was sold as an investment. yet after two years, the unemployment rate remains above 9%. and government has added over $3 trillion to our debt. the president and his party made matters even worse by creating a new open ended health care entitlement. what we already know about the president's health care law is this: costs are going up. premiums are rising. millions of people will lose the coverage they currently have. job creation is being stifled by all of its taxes, penalties, mandates and fees. businesses and unions from around the country are asking the obama administration for

waivers from the mandates. washington should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. the president mentioned the need for regulatory reform, to ease the burden on american businesses. we agree. and we think this health care law would be a great place to start. last week house republicans voted for a full repeal of this law as we pledged to do. and we will work to replace it with fiscally responsible patient-centered reforms that actually reduce costs and expand coverage. health care spending is driving the explosive growth of our debt. and the president's law is accelerating our country toward bankruptcy. our debt is out of control. what was a fiscal challenge is now a fiscal crisis. we cannot deny it. in instead we must as americans confront it responsibly. and that is exactly what republicans pledge to do. americans are skeptical of both political parties. at