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“This country has faced challenging times. The last year is one of the most challenging in our history,” Gibbs told MSNBC television Wednesday.

A poll published Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal found that 51 percent of Americans believe Obama has devoted too little attention on the economy, and 44 percent think he has spent too much on health care, which a plurality believes is “not a good a idea.”

Obama has already failed to live up to one of his most prominent promises: closing the camp for terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Polls show that Obama remains popular among Americans — but confidence in his policies is fading: the president’s approval ratings are at 50 or below in most opinion surveys.

“He is hopeful,hair straightners, and will talk tonight about continuing efforts to get money and tax cuts to small businesses, to spur hiring and lending through community banks so they will be able to do so.”

Obama also will send a signal to Americans worried about government debt being piled up for future generations, by promising a three-year freeze on non-discretionary spending, which could harm his ambitious reform plans.

With unemployment at 10 percent,uggs boots, a bulging government deficit at 1.4 trillion US dollars, and his aspirations for a transformative administration threatened by Washington partisanship, Obama faces a political moment of truth.

One year into his presidency, Obama’s political brand seems to have lost its luster, as has the idea that a fresh face, with new ideas could steer the US ship of state in a new direction.

Obama will step up in the House of Representatives at 9 pm (0200 GMT) and focus squarely on the pain of America’s middle class and on job creation, the key to long-term recovery, and his own personal political prospects.

Also expected is a promise to improve US protections against bio-terror attacks, for tax breaks to ease the way to college or retirement for Americans, and a framework for the US role in rebuilding earthquake-hit Haiti.

The State of the Union is not just the president’s best annual chance to speak unfiltered to Americans, but it is also closely watched around the world.

“We were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people,” Obama told ABC News last week.

And the haunting political legacy that the president inherited from president George W. Bush — a collapsed economy,uggs boots, two wars and multiple security threats, has weakened the reforming zeal of his presidency.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama would address “the anger and frustration that Americans are facing about the economy — getting back on track.”

But given the poisoned political climate in the run-up to mid-term congressional polls in November, and some panic in Obama’s Democratic Party, prospects for these initiatives look uncertain.

Obama is also likely to spell out initiatives for immigration reform, cap-and-trade global warming legislation, wide-ranging education reform and regulatory rules to halt risky business practices on Wall Street.

The New York Times reported that Obama will announce the creation of a bipartisan panel to press for tax increases and spending cuts to deal with ballooning deficits. A similar proposal died in the Senate for lack of common ground.

A month after a thwarted attack to bring down a packed US airliner on Christmas Day, Obama will argue that his administration has made important progress against terrorism in Africa and the Middle East.

He may highlight the lack of recent US deaths in Iraq and his vow to get combat soldiers home by the end of August, but he must also bolster public support for his troop surge in Afghanistan.

Economic gloom clouds first Obama State of the Union