Scott Horsley

On Tuesday, President Obama continued his campaign against the automatic across-the-board budget cuts set to take effect on March 1.

"It's good to be home," President Obama said to a crowd, including uniformed high school students, at Chicago's Hyde Park Academy on Friday.

The school is in the same neighborhood where the Obamas raised their children, but the topic of the president's visit was raising Chicago's children — and the nation's. The president returned to his hometown to address the scourge of gun violence that's plaguing the city and many other parts of the country.

President Obama will cap off a busy week of politicking with some R&R in Florida.

Obama plans to travel to the West Palm Beach area for what his spokesman called "some well-deserved downtime."

"He's going to spend Presidents Day weekend relaxing with some friends," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. "There's no work on the schedule."

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Pre-school is one example of how President Obama says the government can play a constructive role in the U.S. economy. In his State of the Union speech, President Obama tried to refocus a debate that, for two years, has been all about cutting. The president is highlighting government programs that even many Republicans support.

Here's NPR's Scott Horsley.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: The U.S. economy is slowly recovering from the Great Recession, but President Obama says the government could be doing more to help.

The White House seemed surprised last month when President Obama's inaugural address was characterized in some quarters as a liberal manifesto. So Tuesday night's State of the Union speech was firmly grounded in the bread-and-butter pocketbook issues facing the middle class.

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President Obama met with business and labor leaders today at the White House. He's trying to build a broad coalition in support of revamping immigration laws. The two sides haven't always seen eye to eye on immigration. But this year, on this issue, they're mostly working together on the issue. We'll hear more in a moment about the evolution of organized labor's position.

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It's that rare week in politics when Republicans and Democrats have been advocating roughly the same thing.

INSKEEP: Some - though by no means all - GOP leaders insist it's time to back changes in immigration laws. Republican Senator Jeff Flake argued on this program yesterday, for example, that reform was morally right and also politically necessary for his party.

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Today, President Obama renewed his push for an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. He told an audience in Las Vegas that it's time to finally deal with the millions of undocumented immigrants who are living in the shadows now. The president's speech comes one day after a bipartisan group of senators outlined their own plan for immigration reform.

President Obama named Denis McDonough his fourth chief of staff on Friday, replacing Jack Lew, who has been nominated to be secretary of the Treasury. McDonough, 43, has been deputy national security adviser and a foreign policy advisor to Obama for six years.

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Of all the prosecutors' jobs in America, the one with the highest profile may well be the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York - that federal prosecutor overseas investigations of everything from the mafia to terrorism to financial crimes. During an especially busy time in the 1990s, that U.S. Attorney became Mary Jo White.

President Obama's choice to head the Securities and Exchange Commission has prosecuted terrorists and mobsters. If she's confirmed, Mary Jo White's next challenge will be tackling reckless behavior on Wall Street.

President Obama vowed in this week's inaugural speech to address climate change. The comments recevied a chilly reception in Congress. There are, however, steps the administration can take on its own.

President Obama begins his second term much the way he ended his first — locked in a fiscal fight with congressional Republicans. But the president's argument that the November election would break the logjam hasn't panned out just yet.

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In a looming battle over the federal debt ceiling, Republicans in Congress insist they hold the cards. They do have the power to stop federal borrowing, withhold payment of federal debts and cause unknown damage to the world economy. Some want to use that power to force President Obama to reduce federal spending in the way they want.

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President Obama will nominate his chief of staff as the next treasury secretary later today. Jack Lew is a budget expert who could hit the ground running, as the Treasury tries to cope with a looming debt ceiling, automatic spending cuts and the ongoing push for long-term deficit reduction. Lew would be the latest nominee for a high-profile Cabinet post, as the president prepares for a second term.

The Obama administration has long hinted that White House chief of staff Jack Lew was the president's choice for the next Treasury Secretary. An announcement is expected as soon as Thursday. Scott Horsley talks with Melissa Block about the likely pick.

Chuck Hagel would be the first Defense secretary to have worn the uniform of an enlisted man, and also the first to have fought in Vietnam. Hagel won two purple hearts, and still carries some of the scars and shrapnel from that war. Obama says that makes him the kind of Pentagon leader that U.S. troops deserve.

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President Obama may be going into the next big budget fight without his long-time treasury secretary. Timothy Geithner had been planning to leave before the start of the president's second term, but that would mean he is departing with the debt ceiling still looming and the Treasury scrambling to keep up with the government's bills.

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NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now. And, Scott, Secretary Geithner has made no secret of his plans to leave the government, but it sounds like his departure could be complicated.

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President Obama praised the cliff-dodging deal last night, saying it delivers on a central promise of his campaign.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Thanks to the votes of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, I will sign a law that raises taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.

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The party went until the morning hours here in Washington. We're talking about the gathering on Capitol Hill. Senators were voting around 2:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

President Obama tapped Massachusetts Senator John Kerry to be the next Secretary of State on Friday. Kerry is expected to win easy confirmation in the Senate, which would be a relief in the midst of fierce partisan battles over taxes, spending and — coming next month — gun control. Melissa Block talks to Scott Horsley.

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Last week's elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut was not the first massacre of recent years. It wasn't even the first massacre of this year, nor was it the first in which children were among the victims.

President Obama tapped Vice President Biden to lead a new government effort against gun violence on Wednesday. It's the first step toward what Mr. Obama promised as "meaningful action" in the wake of deadly shootings at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut.

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Over the weekend, President Obama delivered a passionate plea to prevent gun violence, saying we haven't done enough as a country to keep our children safe. The president promised to use all the powers of his office to address the issue in the coming weeks. NPR's Scott Horsley reports on the president's next steps.

The Consumer Price Index is one of the most familiar measures in economics and politics. But some in Washington want to change the way the index is calculated to better reflect people's shopping habits.

While the proposed change is described as a technical fix, it could also cut the federal deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.

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Well, even if Americans largely agree on addressing the deficit with a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts, the consensus falls apart when you get specific about those spending cuts. And that may be why politicians have been wary of discussing cuts in too much detail. We're going to try to remedy that now with NPR's Scott Horsley. Hi, Scott.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Robert.

Ben Franklin famously observed that nothing is certain but death and taxes.

So far, Congress hasn't repealed the former, but the future of estate taxes — a largely overlooked piece of the "fiscal cliff" — remains uncertain as this year draws to a close.

Until now, most of the year-end tax debate has focused on the income tax, but another battle could be brewing over estate taxes.

As leaders in Washington try to make a deal to avoid the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts slated to go into effect in the new year, one major focus of the negotiations is whether to let taxes go up on the rich.

The Obama administration wants to allow the Bush-era tax cuts to expire for top earners. House Speaker John Boehner and congressional Republicans have countered with a proposal that they say would raise revenue through ending loopholes and deductions in the tax code and would not increase tax rates.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says it's up to congressional Republicans to take the next step in budget talks to avoid the pending automatic spending cuts and tax increases at the end of the year.

Appearing on the Sunday talk shows, Geithner said there's "no path to an agreement" until Republicans are willing to accept higher tax rates on the rich.

President Obama is hoping the same campaign tools that helped him win re-election will also deliver a policy win in the fight over federal taxes.

The president wants Congress to extend Bush-era tax cuts for most Americans, while allowing taxes to go up for the wealthiest 2 percent. His aides are using email, social media and beyond-the-Beltway campaign appearances in hopes of putting pressure on Republican lawmakers.