President regroups, looks ahead ( focus on economy, federal tax relief)

[papau]

Bush will focus on "economic successes" when he tours the Chicago Board of Trade and speaks to the Economic Club of Chicago on Friday.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0601030235jan03,1,6185611.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

President regroups, looks ahead
After setbacks, Bush expected to focus on economy, federal tax relief

By Mark Silva and William Neikirk
Washington Bureau
Published January 3, 2006
WASHINGTON -- President Bush will strive to focus public attention on a growing economy and tax relief in the new year as he struggles to reclaim political capital lost after his most bruising year and revive a stalled domestic agenda.

For Bush, a president under siege early in his second term, the challenge is daunting. It involves drawing the American public's eye toward the nation's economic successes--low unemployment and an expanding job market--while overcoming public concern about the death toll in an unpopular war in Iraq.

Rising interest rates, the cost of energy and a staggering federal deficit will complicate the positive picture the president attempts to portray of an economy still vulnerable to trouble. The White House also is bracing for painful cuts in the new budget that Bush will propose in February.

Analysts also say American military forces will have to start coming home from Iraq in greater numbers in 2006 if Bush is to regain political clout with the public, and with a fractured Congress, which he lost during the tumultuous first year of his second term.<snip>



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