On Iran, the third nation, beyond Iraq and North Korea, to make up Bush's "axis of evil," the president reiterated an oft-stated message, addressing his words directly to the Iranian people and their leaders. To the people, he said, "we have no quarrel with you; we respect your traditions and your history." To the leaders, he said, "Come clean about your nuclear intentions and past actions, stop your oppression at home and cease your support for terror abroad."

Bush has often said he intends to "sprint to the finish." Still, it was clear in his speech on Monday night that the sprinting would involve relatively small steps. Beyond the scholarship money for low-income children, he offered just a handful of truly new initiatives.

The president promised to use his veto pen to curtail by 50 percent the pet projects lawmakers sometimes insert into spending bills without full congressional approval. "The people's trust in their government is undermined by congressional earmarks," he said, referring to the projects in shorthand.

Bush called on Congress to pass legislation that allows members of the military to transfer their GI Bill education benefits to spouses and children. And he promised to reduce or eliminate 151 government programs that Ed Gillespie, his counselor, described as "wasteful or bloated," to save $18 billion — a small fraction of the $150 billion in spending and tax cuts that he has proposed as part of the stimulus package.

But many of the initiatives Bush announced were not new. He called on Congress to amend the tax code to make private health insurance more affordable, a plan he unveiled in his State of the Union address last year. He urged lawmakers to devote $30 billion over the next five years to combating the global AIDS epidemic, a proposal he announced in the Rose Garden in May. He asked Congress to pass a law that banned human cloning, recycling a proposal from his 2006 State of the Union address.

One area where Bush hopes to find bipartisan consensus is in the reauthorization of his signature education bill, No Child Left Behind — one of his few bipartisan achievements.

"Six years ago," the president said, "we came together to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, and today no one can deny its results. Now we must work together to increase accountability, add flexibility for states and districts, reduce the number of high school dropouts and provide extra help for struggling schools."

State of the Union key points

• Said the troop buildup in Iraq has achieved positive results.

• Called for passage of the $150 billion economic stimulus package.

• Proposed $300 million in scholarship money for low-income children.

• Promised to eliminate $18 billion of wasteful programs.

• Pledged to veto billions of dollars of congressional "earmarks."