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The state of our economy will be an important subject in next week’s State of the Union address by President Barack Obama. A recent set of speeches and announcements by the president and other senior administration officials mark out important new economic initiatives likely to underpin the president’s speech before Congress. These new initiatives build on the two threads that have run through the president’s economic policy since he first took office and began to bridge the abyss of the grim economy he inherited to get to the economy our nation desires.

President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico is an act of national insanity. It isn't often that a president makes a decision that has no redeeming virtues and -- beyond the symbolism -- won't even advance the goals of the groups that demanded it. All it tells us is that Obama is so obsessed with his re-election that, through some sort of political calculus, he believes that placating his environmental supporters will improve his chances.

A decrease in November exports and an increase in imports resulted in a rise in the Nation's international trade deficit in goods and services to $47.8 billion compared to $43.3 billion (revised) in October.

After four years of epic budget woes, states are ready for an improved 2012. Some are even poised to add dollars back to programs they wish they never had to cut.

Every state knows it is about to get less financial help from the federal government. What none of them knows is just how much less.

With the 2012 election drawing near, Republican leaders in much of the country are sounding less combative on the legislative front than they did in 2011.

Here are 20 recent ideas from CAP’s policy teams to create middle-class jobs and promote an economy that works for everyone, not just the privileged few. Many of these ideas build on the ideas presented in our "Meeting the Jobs Challenge" initiative launched in 2009. Click on the links below to learn more about each proposal.

Indiana Democrats are refusing to allow the state’s House to come to session because of the bill. They want Republicans to agree to hold public hearings on the issue around the state.

Three months after she published her unflattering description of
him, it appears President Obama is still miffed with Gov. Jan
Brewer.

The Volcker Rule is fundamentally flawed and will do considerably more harm than good for the economy, said Douglas Elliott in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee.

This year’s edition of the Global MetroMonitor reveals that amid a slowing recovery in 2011, the world’s largest metro economies continued to drive global growth, especially emerging-market metro areas in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, as...

The middle class is our nation’s indispensable workforce. The middle-class consumer creates the incentive to conceive, manufacture, and sell what our economy produces. That demand drives business opportunities and spurs investment. Entrepreneurship and invention also are rooted in the middle class, and the rise in middle-class worker productivity generates much of our nation’s wealth.

The most controversial state issue of 2011 — the fight over collective bargaining and other rights for public-sector employees — isn’t going away in 2012.

For state health officials, rising Medicaid rolls and declining federal support add up to only one scenario: a year of ever tighter budgets.

Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney compare trends in unemployment duration before and after the Great Recession, noting that the probability of finding new employment is considerably lower today than it was before the recession.

A key focus of the Obama administration’s Race to the Top initiative in public education is to support states that implement plans for “recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most.” Race to the Top asked states to adopt more vigorous teacher- education accountability mechanisms and to establish or expand programs “that are successful at producing effective teachers.”

Investors want radical plans to boost ROE above the cost of capital.