This is a rush transcript from “On the Record,” January 24, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Congresswoman Michele Bachmann wanted to take President Obama’s job. Three weeks ago she dropped out of the race. But she still wants President Obama out of the White House. Tonight, for the first time since suspending her campaign for president, she is talking. She is here to tell you what she thought about tonight’s address. Congresswoman Bachmann joins us.

Good evening, Congresswoman. And I can only guess you weren’t wholly satisfied. But is there anything that you can drill in on the president’s speech that was inspiring and hopeful to you tonight for the American people?

REP. MICHELE BACHMANN, R-MINN.: I think was inspiring to hear all of the praise that was given to our brave men and women in uniform. That occurred at the top of the speech and the bottom of the speech. And I think all of us recognize that Usama bin Laden’s capture happened because of the bravery of Seal team six. We will never be able to fully repay that debt to them.

VAN SUSTEREN: Do you get a sense that the president was lecturing members of Congress or did you get a sense he was reaching out and saying let’s work together on very serious problems?

BACHMANN: Some of his language appeared like he was reaching out, but there was no reaching out. There was no new ground that was forged tonight. What we saw was the same old, same old. As a matter of act you could say we saw a fan dance tonight that the president was giving, because he didn’t want to talk about what people are upset about. They’re upset about Obamacare and not being able to access credit under Dodd-Frank. They’re upset about their houses remain underwater.

And you didn’t hear a lot about job creation. What he did defend was the Solyndras of the world, and he intends to have more Solyndras coming. He was very proud of the fact the federal government will be producer of green energy and also the consumer of green energy. That’s essentially socialism. So we saw more of the same of his agenda, and that is what he intends to do going forward.

VAN SUSTEREN: I’m trying to think — and listening to the speech tonight and other presidents, I’m trying to think what do we really expect of a president tonight? We’re not going to get a change in the tax code. He says he wants it, but we’re really not going to get anything done tonight. What do you see as a legally purpose of the State of the Union?

BACHMANN: For the president it was very clear. This is their campaign kickoff. The campaign kickoff was the speech in Kansas, and now this is a follow on to that. So he is laying down issues that he’ll be advocating, which is amnesty for illegal aliens, passing more benefits for illegal aliens. That was part of the speech. More government money for private businesses, but also more government programs these intends to create. There really wasn’t a lot of new ground here that he forged.

What is sad, Greta, people really, truly want to see the economy change. Republicans I think would love to work with the president to make sure we can grow the economy. But what did the president fail to do? There is no call to reduce the corporate income tax, the tax on job creators. In fact the president wants a minimum tax for corporations. Everyone hates the alternative minimum tax.

VAN SUSTEREN: OK, now to the race. This is your first interview since you have suspended your campaign. I appreciate that you are here to talk about the State of the Union. Do you intend to endorse, and when?

BACHMANN: I don’t have any intention right now. I keep in contact with the candidates on a regular basis. We know each other and we like each other. I spoke with Rick Santorum today. I spoke with Mitt Romney today. I spoke with Newt Gingrich today. I enjoy speaking with them on a regular basis. I will continue to do so. I will be standing with our eventual nominee and calling our party to come together in unity. So you haven’t heard the end of my voice on the campaign trail because I’ll be standing and working on behalf of our nominee.

VAN SUSTEREN: What do you make of what people are calling blood on the floor between Speaker Gingrich and Governor Romney? I’m sure you’ve seen the spats they’ve have had at these debates, and the ads have been rather wicked going back and forth. What do you think about it?

BACHMANN: I think the Florida contest will be a decisive one. Of course this will be state number four out of 50, so a long way to go. This in all likelihood, this could be very long process. People have whiplash going between the candidates and watching the numbers go up and down. This could go on for a long time on the other hand it may be over after Florida. Who knows? That is why we’re paying rapt attention to what is happening.

VAN SUSTEREN: And is it a bad thing or good thing for party that it is such aggressive battle between the candidates?

BACHMANN: The focus does need to be on Barack Obama. But let’s not forget there will be no stone unturned by President Obama’s reelection campaign. They will sniff out everything with our candidate. We might as well get it out now and be inoculated and deal with these issues, because we have to focus on our positive message of turning the country around. We’ve got one. Because we didn’t hear one from tonight from the president, no job creation stories from this president. That is what our nominee will have to tell the American people.

VAN SUSTEREN: Congresswoman, thank you.

BACHMANN: Good to be with you, Greta

Mitt Romney is expected to tear into President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address during a crucial campaign stop Wednesday morning in Orlando.

The former Massachusetts governor is scheduled to deliver his rebuttal at 9:25 a.m. during an appearance at American Douglas Metals, on Thorpe Road.

Romney gave a preview of that rebuttal Tuesday during a stop in Tampa, already explaining to Florida voters why he thinks he would do a better job.

He said Obama can give a nice speech, but he won’t talk about the hard numbers.

“President Obama was free to pursue any policy he pleases,” said Romney. “Did he fix the economy? No. Did he tackle the housing crisis? No. Did he get Americans back to work? No. He spent $787 billion on a stimulus bill that didn’t work.”

In his address Tuesday night, Obama did the opposite, outlining what he called the country’s successes during his administration, including a shout out to Orlando:

Join me in a national commitment to train 2 million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job. Model partnerships between businesses like Siemens and community colleges in places like Charlotte, Orlando and Louisville are up and running. Now you need to give more community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers, places that teach people skills that local businesses are looking for right now, from data management to high-tech manufacturing.

Orlando won’t be Romney’s only stop in Florida before next Tuesday’s primary. His schedule is constantly changing as more early voting numbers and poll results are released, but as of Wednesday morning, his planned stops include Titusville and Orlando again on Friday.

In case the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address doesn’t satisfy your political appetite, there will be two – count ‘em, two – additional followups on Tuesday night: one from the tea party and another from the Occupy Wall Street movement.

First, over at the National Press Club in the heart of Washington, Republican ex-candidate Herman Cain will speak on behalf of the Tea Party Express, one of several national tea party groups.

“Our voices are not being represented by either the Republicans or Democrats,” says spokesman Shawn Callahan. “Last year, [US Rep.] Michele Bachmann did a good job for us, so this year we decided that Herman Cain would be a good fit.” 

The pizza magnate, who coined the term “9-9-9″ to market his tax reform policy, will listen to the president’s speech, then pen his own remarks, says Mr. Callahan. But “we do expect him to speak to the fiscal issues that the Tea Party Express stands for,” he adds.

Last year, C-SPAN covered the tea party event live. Fox News did cut-aways between Congresswoman Bachnmann’s remarks and its “The Sean Hannity Show.” “You never know for sure who will show up to cover your event,” he says, “but NBC has said it will send a camera over, and some radio stations have said they will send people over.”

Mr. Cain’s rebuttal will stream live on the group’s website, teapartyexpress.org.

After that, folks from the weather-hardy Occupy Wall Street movement will assemble in a well-lit spot in Washington’s McPherson Square to deliver comments on the “state of the 99 percent.” Their delivery will be via “people’s mikes,” with one group reading a statement that is then repeated and amplified by the next group. This action will cycle throughout the entire crowd until the statement is complete.

By then, it may well be the hour for late-night television, says presidential scholar Charles Dunn, author of “The Seven Laws of Presidential Leadership,” who wonders who will actually be listening. “I follow these speeches, and I can’t imagine that I will stay with it through four separate speeches,” he says with a laugh.

Republican strategist David Johnson, who worked on Sen. Robert Dole’s 1988 presidential campaign, says this proliferation of public responses to the president’s annual speech spotlights the splintering of America’s body politic.

“The two major parties used to be able to contain all these alternative voices within themselves,” he says. “That is no longer the case,  and we are seeing more and more people who feel the need to make their own statement.” Beyond that, he says, this also underlines the role of social media in empowering disparate points of view.

“Before the era of Facebook and Twitter, you wouldn’t have seen such organized responses,” he says.

But history shows that even when groups begin to polarize, the main political parties have been able to absorb their disparate points of view, says Mr. Dunn. He points to 1968, when George Wallace made a third-party presidential run, but Republican candidate Richard Nixon was able to pick up on the grievances that Wallace represented and fold them into the larger Republican platform, resoundingly crushing Wallace’s third-party bid.

“This kind of political splintering runs in cycles in our history,” he says. The disaffected groups usually find ways to rejoin the larger umbrella of the two-party system, he says.

The central theme of President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night was the notion that in America, everybody deserves a fair shake – and that his policies will help make sure they have one.

The central theme of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels’ Republican response was that Mr. Obama has shown himself to be a divisive failure that has chosen class warfare and stifling big government over economic progress.

The outcome of the 2012 presidential election depends in large part on which of those arguments Americans decide to embrace.

The centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s call for economic fairness was the so-called “Buffett Rule,” which is predicated on the notion that the wealthy investor should pay as much as his secretary in taxes. (Mr. Obama said Tuesday night that anyone making more than $1 million per year should pay no less than a 30 percent tax rate; we learned earlier in the day that one of the chief contenders for the GOP presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, paid less than 14 percent on $21.7 million in income in 2010.)

“Now, you can call this class warfare all you want,” he said. “But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.”

Class warfare is exactly what Republicans are calling it. House Speaker John Boehner – who sat behind Mr. Obama during the speech, along with Vice President Joe Biden – suggested earlier in the day that the president’s politics of “division and envy” are “almost un-American.” Daniels said that “no feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others.”

Mr. Obama would seem to have the advantage in this fight: A CBS News/New York Times poll out Tuesday found that 55 percent of Americans think upper-income taxpayers pay less than their fair share. And in the wake of the emergence of the “Occupy” movement, a Pew survey earlier this month found that two in three Americans now see a strong conflict between rich and poor. Even the two leading Republican presidential candidates, Romney and Newt Gingrich, have gotten into a fight over whether Romney’s former company Bain Capital engages in heartless capitalism that rewards the rich while leaving average Americans behind.

That’s why Republicans are not eager to spend the year fighting on Mr. Obama’s terms. Instead, they want to put the focus squarely on the fact that Mr. Obama has spent three years presiding over an economy that has yet to recover from the 2008 financial crisis. Daniels said Tuesday night that the president “cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse: the percentage of Americans with a job is at the lowest in decades. One in five men of prime working age, and nearly half of all persons under 30, did not go to work today.” (Daniels’ full remarks are at left; the president’s are above.)

This is the argument that Republicans want to have. A CBS/NYT poll earlier this month showed that just 40 percent of Americans approve of Mr. Obama’s handling of the economy, while 54 percent disapprove. Only 35 percent say the president has made real progress on the economy, which voters overwhelmingly say is their top concern. If Republicans can hammer home the notion that Mr. Obama has failed to guide the economy effectively – in a way that has harmed all Americans, rich, poor and middle-class – they will likely win the election.

From a political perspective, good news for the economy is bad news for the Republicans: Amid signs that the economy is improving, the survey showed a slight uptick in perceptions of the condition of the economy – and Mr. Obama’s handling of it. Still, the economic picture is unlikely to be rosy in November, and Republicans know their best hope is to convince Americans that Mr. Obama has squandered his opportunity to turn things around. 

That’s the reason you heard Daniels speaking in relatively dour terms Tuesday night. “When President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true,” he said at the outset of his remarks. You can expect to hear the GOP hammering home that notion right up until Election Day.

The other key plank in the GOP offensive against Mr. Obama is the notion that he wants an overregulating, nanny-state government that doesn’t let American businesses succeed and American individuals make their own choices. That argument has long been effective for Republicans, which is why you heard Mr. Obama note Tuesday night that he “approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his.” It’s also why he uttered a line you’d expect to hear from a Republican: That he believes “[g]overnment should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.”

But that’s playing defense, and Mr. Obama knows he needs to play offense. That’s why he brought Buffett’s secretary to his speech Tuesday night, and it’s why he’s embarking on a three day swing-state tour on Wednesday to hammer home his State of the Union arguments. The president and his re-election team believe that a focus on income inequality and economic fairness are good politics. They also know that while Romney may well be a formidable opponent if he gets the nomination, a focus on income inequality could transform what was supposed to be the former Massachusetts governor’s biggest strength – his time in the business world, which helped him reach a net worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars – into a weakness that puts him on the wrong side of an argument they are eager to have.

State of the Union: 10 highlights from Obama’s speech
A re-election speech in State of the Union clothing
Mitch Daniels: Obama has “held back” economy, made debt “radically worse”
Obama makes pitch for economic fairness in State of the Union address
WH aide: Obama wants “room for everybody”

Rep. Mary Bono Mack said President Barack Obama offered no new plans for fixing the economy in his State of the Union address, and charged it is “class warfare” to design a tax reform plan around making the wealthy pay more.

The Palm Springs Republican — who is leading the formation of a bipartisan strategy to create more manufacturing jobs — said any tax reform should benefit all manufacturers that create American jobs, not just those who bring them back from overseas.

“I want all manufacturing to grow. I don’t believe it’s fair that he’s going to pick and choose,” she told The Desert Sun. “If you’re going to give a tax break to one, you should give a tax break to all. If he’s going to lower the taxes — and he should — he should lower the taxes on all on them. For every job you create.”

Rep. Jerry Lewis also urged for equality in tax reform.

“The president needs to stop blaming the wealthy for our nation’s problems and begin working with us to get the economy moving,” the Redlands Republican, whose district includes Desert Hot Springs, said in a statement.

Sen. Barbara Boxer gave the president’s speech more positive reviews, dubbing it “a blueprint for building an economy that works for every American.”

“The president’s eloquent optimism stands in marked contrast to the angry tone Americans have been hearing on the campaign trail from his opponents,” the Rancho Mirage Democrat said in a statement.

“I welcome his call to action for us to work together to strengthen the middle class, create clean energy jobs, help responsible homeowners stay in their homes, protect the environment from toxins such as mercury and rebuild America’s infrastructure.”

In the 358 days between his first State of the State address and tonight’s highly anticipated speech, Gov. Scott Walker has gone from conquering hero to vulnerable candidate.

A year ago, the new governor arrived at the state Assembly chambers, fresh from a series of early legislative victories and armed with what he felt was a mandate for change.

This year, Walker comes into the speech a wounded politician. His poll numbers are low; his signature legislation has sparked a recall effort; and his efforts to improve the business climate have not yet turned the tide on job losses.

In fact, numbers released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday show that Wisconsin is the only state in the country to have lost jobs in each of the past six months straight.

So, the question tonight is whether Walker will use the annual address to mend fences and reboot his image, or to double down, defend his record and push for even more sweeping legislation.

“Oh what a difference a year makes,” said Mordecai Lee, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee political science professor and former Democratic state lawmaker. “Last year feels like a different era, one before the protests and the sing-alongs and the recalls.”

State of the State addresses traditionally produce a couple of heart-warming anecdotes, a handful of applause lines and one or two big legislative proposals.

Walker used his first to deliver a sober assessment, warning people of the “hard sacrifices” coming.

But this year’s speech figures to be an event. Walker’s spokesman Cullen Werwie said the governor’s address will focus on progress made this year, including reforms that helped keep property taxes stable and his efforts to address waste, fraud and abuse in state programs.

It might be a tough sell, given the news Tuesday that Wisconsin lost more than 35,000 jobs since Walker passed his $66 billion budget in June. That two-year spending plan slashed state programs to close an estimated $3 billion budget hole.

Walker said the cuts, along with legislation aimed at changing the state’s business climate, were supposed to put Wisconsin on firm footing and help turn around the moribund job market.

But according to the Labor Bureau, Wisconsin lost more jobs during the past six months than any other state.

“If Gov. Walker had spent any meaningful time during the past year focusing on putting people back to work, Wisconsin wouldn’t be falling so far behind our neighbors and the rest of the country when it comes to jobs,” said Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha.

The governor’s office counters such claims by pointing out Wisconsin lost 150,000 jobs before he took office. They say that despite the recent downturn, the state has more jobs now than it did at this time last year.

“While there may be some bumps along the way, Wisconsin is headed in the right direction,” Werwie said.

Tonight’s message, however, will only be one part of the spectacle. It seems likely protesters will attempt to interrupt the governor and embarrass him as they have at other recent public appearances in the Capitol.

“It’s really hard to make your point when you are being yelled at constantly,” said Larry Sabato, a national political expert and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Ten days after last year’s speech, Walker introduced his controversial collective bargaining bill. The proposal led to a monthlong continuous protest at the Capitol and started what would become a year of bitter fighting that divided the state and incited some 1 million people to sign petitions to recall Walker.

The potential for another election has forced the governor to spend more time on the road raising money than in Wisconsin focused on fixing problems.

“He’s in a real pickle,” Sabato said. “The outside image of Wisconsin is of a state in turmoil. That feeds into the problems Walker is dealing with. I’m not sure anything he says in his speech can fix that.”

Jed Kolko, Trulia Chief Economist

Following President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address, Trulia’s Chief Economist shares his thoughts on what was and wasn’t said about housing.

You might have missed it among the long, long to-do list Obama gave tonight, but the President announced two new housing proposals: more refinancing, and more investigations of banks. Neither is a breakthrough: they fill in some of the missing pieces in the messy jigsaw puzzle of Obama’s housing policy. Here’s what he proposed:

1) Letting more borrowers refinance. Obama proposed that “every responsible homeowner” be able to refinance. The existing refinancing program (HARP) lets borrowers who are current on their mortgages refinance even if they’re way underwater – but only if their loans are guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Obama’s proposal would extend refinancing to borrowers who are current but whose loans AREN’T guaranteed by Fannie or Freddie – which the New York Times reportscould be two or three million borrowers. It sounds like Obama will ask Congress to let the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) guarantee refinancings by underwater borrowers and charge big banks a fee to cover the costs. If Congress is involved and banks are asked to pay … well, let’s just say it’s not a done deal. Obama doesn’t always get his way with Congress or with the banks.

And if this happens? It won’t save the housing market. Letting borrowers refinance only if they’re current on payments won’t help people on the verge of losing their homes. And, refinancing won’t reduce principal, so underwater borrowers stay underwater. Refinancing is economic stimulus: it gives homeowners with mortgages more spending money. (I said the same thing last October about the expansion of HARP.)

2) Investigating mortgage lending and securitization. Again, this proposal fills in missing pieces. That big robo-signing settlement – which Obama didn’t mention tonight but could come soon – would punish banks only for their foreclosure practices. The new, proposed investigation would have those same states’ attorneys-general plus the feds go after risky lending and securitization practices. It’s great politics to punish banks, and maybe they deserve it. But remember, the robo-signing controversy has gummed up the foreclosure process as banks wait for the settlement to set clear rules on foreclosures. What if this new investigation gums up lending and securitization? That could make mortgages scarcer and more expensive.

The only real housing fireworks were the swipe Obama took at Republican candidate Mitt Romney.  The President said “responsible homeowners shouldn’t have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom,” a direct hit at Romney’s comments in Nevada last October that the foreclosure process should “run its course and hit the bottom.” If Romney gets to face Obama in the presidential election, you can bet Obama will be tossing that quote back in Romney’s face again and again. Here’s to 2012!

President Obama continues to battle high unemployment and frosty relations with Congress just as Americans begin to weigh whether to give him a second term. But he made the case that the nation has made progress on several fronts under his stewardship. Here’s a look behind the rhetoric:

President Obama delivers the State of the Union Address on Tuesday as Vice President Biden and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, look on.

Statement:

“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”

Reality check: This isn’t the first time Obama has framed the defining societal challenge as one of economic fairness.

But Obama is proposing more specific tax changes to deal with the income inequality: A 30% effective income tax rate on millionaires and billionaires in what has been described as the “Buffett Rule,” and a limit to the number of deductions that households making more than $1 million can take.

“It’s interesting that what counts as wealthy has gradually moved upwards and upwards and upwards,” said Elizabeth Jacobs, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. “During the campaign it was $250,000, and now it’s a millionaire or a billionaire.”

The prospects for a significant individual tax overhaul this year are slim, which opens him up to criticism that his tax proposals are more of a campaign platform than a legislative agenda.

Statement:

“Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.”

Reality check: Obama certainly has had his share of foreign policy successes over the last year. He followed through with a campaign promise to end the war in Iraq, a team of U.S. Navy SEALs hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden in May, and the U.S. supported a NATO-led operation in Libya that culminated with the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi.

But at least one potential national security land mine lies ahead: Iran. GOP presidential hopefuls have hammered Obama on his Iran policy, suggesting his administration has been feckless in thwarting Iran’s purported ambition to become a nuclear-armed country and was slow to embrace Iranian democracy protests in 2009.

“Iran will loom large in months ahead and the presidential election as well,” said James Phillips, a Middle East analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “This is where Obama’s foreign policy is most vulnerable.”

Statement:

“Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy. Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I’m directing my administration to open more than 75% of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years. That’s right — eight years. Not only that — last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years.”

Reality check: With his call for more efforts to increase domestic oil and natural gas production, Obama offered a rebuttal to GOP criticism of his energy security policy.

The president called for developing a “roadmap” for safe development of shale gas, which he said could support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade and called for the new incentives for the private sector to upgrade equipment — which could save companies $100 billion over 10 years.

Republican lawmakers have lashed out at his decision to reject — for now — permitting of the 1,700 mile Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring tar sands oil from Canada to Texas.

Obama did not speak on the Keystone controversy, but he noted that the American oil production is at an eight-year high. Domestic crude oil production is expected to jump more than 20% in the coming decade, from 5.5 million barrels per day in 2010 to 6.7 million in 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

U.S. dependence on foreign oil is below 50% for the first time in 13 years. Oil industry experts quibble with the notion that Obama should get any credit for the declining oil dependence.

Lower imports are the result of lower demand caused by a sluggish economy, and growth in production is largely due to industry’s ability to extract oil from shale rock in North Dakota’s Bakken area, according to Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute.

Statement:

“I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. ”

Reality check: The president’s plan appears to be a significant expansion of previous efforts to help homeowners refinance their mortgages. The problem, as many homeowners know, is that many homes are worth less than the mortgage payoff — making it difficult to refinance to take advantage of interest rates that are now below 4%.

Obama would pay for the program with a new fee on banks, but Eric Belsky of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University said it’s unclear how the program will be an improvement. “As always, the details need to follow.”

Statement:

“If you’re an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut. If you’re a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making products here.”

Reality check: Generally, economists say tax breaks to encourage specific investment decisions are a bad idea, and rarely effective. Business investment plunged early in the last decade despite tax breaks to prop up software and technology investment after the technology bust of 2000, and investment in software and related equipment lags behind 1990s levels, adjusted for inflation, according to Barclays Capital. Generally, the market would be better off if government reduced corporate tax rates and offered fewer, rather than more deductions, Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi said.

WASHINGTON — The partisan atmosphere in Congress has become so poisonous it’s reached the point where Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and others are touting the fact they’ll be sitting with a member of the opposite party when the president gives his State of the Union speech today.

Murkowski has been the chief Republican proponent of the bipartisan date idea in the Senate, an arrangement that started last year after calls for greater for civility in Congress after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Colorado Democratic Sen. Mark Udall is the main champion of the arrangement in his party, and will be sitting with Murkowski for the speech.

Another 182 of the 535 members of Congress, including all the Alaska delegation, have also signed on to sit next to a member from the other party.

So does it really matter where these guys are sitting for a speech one night a year, particularly when Congress has so many actual issues it hasn’t been able to deal with, like the massive deficit?

William Galston, a co-founder at the nonpartisan group No Labels, said his outfit has been pushing the seating as part of a much more ambitious overall effort to get members of Congress to work together. He’s heard the complaint that it’s trivial where lawmakers sit down.

“The seating is the beginning. If it’s the end, then it doesn’t accomplish much, but if it’s the beginning of something larger it could be very important,” said Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Alaska Democratic Sen. Mark Begich is going to be sitting with Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe. Alaska Republican Congressman Don Young, who last year attended his first State of the Union Speech since 1974, will be back this year. Young plans to sit next to Hawaii Democratic Rep. Mazie Hirono.

Murkowski, who won a write-in election in 2010 with the help of independents and Democrats after losing in the Republican primary, said the seating arrangement isn’t a solution but it’s something.

“By no stretch do Senator Udall and I believe this gesture will put an immediate halt to the argument culture rampant on Capitol Hill, but it is a step in the right direction when it comes to opening up the lines of communication,” she said.

 U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., center, tours the Gabrielle Giffords Family Assistance Center with Community Food Bank chief executive Bill Carnegie, right, and board member Fran McNeely on Monday in Tucson. Giffords announced Sunday that she would resign from Congress this week to focus on recovering from being shot in the head one year ago. (Matt York, The Associated Press)Related2012 Obama State of the UnionJan 24:Colorado Rep. Doug Lamborn to skip State of the UnionPresidents’ State of Union goals often fail in political realityJan 23:State of Union: Obama to take on economic anxiety

WASHINGTON — The White House says President Barack Obama has invited Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ husband to tonight’s State of the Union address. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama looks forward to having Mark Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut, as a guest sitting with the first lady.

A Brighton chemist and a Denver college student also will attend, White House officials told The Denver Post on Monday. Lorelei Kilker, a scientist, was part of a large class of women who benefited from an federal investigation into alleged systemic sex discrimination.

Mahala Greer, 24, of the University of Colorado Denver, introduced Obama in the fall when he visited her campus. She has worked through college and will Post Poll – State of the UnionRepresentative Doug Lamborn does not plan on attending President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday, citing a difference of opinion over the president’s policies. Read a related article. Do you think Lamborn should attend the State of the Union? Yes. Whatever his differences with the president are, he is an elected official and should show his respect for the office. No. If Lamborn is taking a principled stand, I believe it is his right to stay away from the address. I don’t know.graduate in May with $35,000 in debt. She represents a program the administration is pushing to make paying for college easier. Denver Post staff writer Allison Sherry and The Associated Press.