(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-29 11:46

Bush's top priority is for Congress to swiftly approve an anti-recession package to provide tax rebate checks to 117 million families and give businesses $50 billion in incentives to invest in new plants and equipment. The program has been endorsed by Democratic and Republican leaders of the House, but the Senate is preparing a package of add-ons. Senate Democrats want more money for senior citizens living off Social Security; they also want an extension of unemployment benefits.

The president also was to:

• Announce a White House summit on inner-city children and religious schools.

• Urge elimination of 150 federal programs he considers wasteful.

• Announce that his annual meeting with the leaders of Mexico and Canada will be held this year in New Orleans, to show off recovery efforts.

• Call for an effort to crack down on the pork barrel practices of Congress, saying he will veto any spending bill that does not cut in half the number and cost of congressional pet projects, known as earmarks.

The president planned to issue an executive order Tuesday ordering federal agencies to ignore earmarks that aren't explicitly enacted into law, erasing a common practice in which lawmakers' projects are outlined in nonbinding documents that accompany legislation. However, Bush's plan leaves untouched the more than 11,700 earmarks totaling $16.9 billion that Congress approved last year.

The president was expected to press Congress to make permanent the tax cuts that are set to expire in 2010; Democrats are cool to the idea. He will prod Congress to extend a law allowing surveillance on suspected terrorists, renew his education law and approve free-trade pacts with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

He also was recycling ideas on alternative energy, affordable health care, housing reform and veterans' care. Bush also was renewing his ideas on climate change and stem cell research

Bush will promote the US-backed Middle East peace effort and his administration's efforts to fight disease and hunger, and suggest that the United States fight hunger abroad by buying and distributing crops from developing countries rather than relying on US farmers.

He has eight overseas trips scheduled for 2008 -- the most of any year of his presidency.

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