WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama used an election-year State of the Union address Tuesday night to frame the national debate not as a referendum on him but as a pivotal decision on how to save the American dream.

He boasted that the nation's economy has improved, albeit slowly, from the depths of the Great Recession. "The state of our Union is getting stronger," he said.

But he said the middle class has been losing ground for decades, and he urged a new agenda of taxes and government spending to tilt the playing field away from the rich and powerful and more toward the rest of the citizenry.

Once, he said, Americans believed "the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement. The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive."

"No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important," he said. "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."

The speech fleshed out a broad vision Obama laid out in December in a speech in Osawatomie, Kan., one modeled after a 1910 speech that Theodore Roosevelt gave in the same town laying out themes for what would become the Progressive Era.

Among his proposals: a 30 percent minimum tax on millionaires, a minimum tax on companies that ship jobs overseas coupled with tax cuts for those that keep factory jobs at home, and a $200 billion, six-year plan to build roads, bridges and railways with money saved from bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Obama opened his speech declaring victory in bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq, eliminating Osama bin Laden, and beginning to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. That enables the country, he said, to "think about the America within our reach."

Republicans countered with a similar vision of a more prosperous America where everyone shares the bounty. But they offered a far different agenda, and castigated Obama for policies they said have made things worse.

"As Republicans our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life's ladder," said Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, giving the official Republican response. "We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots. We must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves."

He said that Obama hurt the economy with over-regulation of business, a refusal to allow domestic energy production, and proposals to raise taxes on the rich that amount to dividing the country.

Obama insisted that his agenda is what's needed to put the country back on track.

"Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that does the same," he said. "It's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody."

Under the broad theme of helping build a fairer economy, Obama laid out proposals in four categories: helping restore U.S. manufacturing, improving U.S. energy independence, teaching workers new skills for a changing economy, and tax increases he called "a renewal of American values."