CRI听力:Preview of Obama's State of Union Address

US President Barack Obama has pushed hard to implement his agenda even after the Republicans took control of Congress.

These include the hotly debated Presidential decree halting the deportation of illegal immigrants and reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba that has stalled for almost half a century.

However, the US media and political pundits all say that they are not expecting much from the President's upcoming State of Union address.

Allan Lichtman is a History Professor at the American University.

He says the annual Presidential address, despite all the fanfare, was a rather "boring" affair. He doesn't foresee any grand initiatives that might be announced in the upcoming address. But there are some smaller changes that could still have a large impact.

"He has certainly signaled he is going to push for a program to provide free two-year's of community college for high school graduates across the country."

This is among the three new proposals that President Obama has unveiled in the week leading up to his address. The other two focuses on strengthening cyber security and expanding broadband access and giving workers paid family leave.

But Congress has a tendency to sideline the policy proposals which the President unveils. This year, Obama faces an uphill battle to convince the congress led by Republicans to increase government spending to implement such policies.

Prof. Allan Lichtman again.

"I think that there are a couple of things that they could agree on, and I think I pointed some of those out. Cyber security – I mean, that's pretty non-controversial. Perhaps some kind of tax reform, but I'm much less optimistic about that. And perhaps the Trans-Pacific Partnership."

According to Lichtman, the State of the Union address is more of a ritual to pump up the spirits of the American people.

"No. 1, an expression, of course, that the union is strong. He's got a lot of positive things that he could point to, most notably a finally strong recovery with a rapidly growing economy, with job creation that we haven't seen since the 1990s, unemployment almost cut in half down from a peak of close – around 10 percent down to the middle 5 percent range. If you look at the consumer confidence index, it's the highest it's been in a very long time."

In addition to focusing on domestic challenges and the economy, Obama is also expected to touch upon the challenges abroad. This year, ISIS and Iran are expected to top his list of concerns.

"He, of course, is going to talk about the challenges abroad, the strong response to ISIS, the continuing negotiations with Iran, and will, I think, plead with Congress not to impose new sanctions on Iran."

This year the White House is also searching for new ways to spread the key message delivered in the speech. Therefore, for the first time Obama's first big post-speech interview will be broadcast online via YouTube and not on via traditional media like established Newspapers or even a TV news channel.

For CRI, I'm He Fei in Washington.