It’s a weird feeling of gender bending to imagine writing a major speech for a president of a different party. It’s tempting to treat the whole exercise as a joke: “First of all, I’d like to express my apologies to Prime Minister Netanyahu for treating him so rudely.” Or — worse — you insert into the president’s mouth words that he’d never say, and the whole thing degenerates into political wish fulfillment.

Yet there can be a real purpose in the exercise. After the Democratic defeat of November 1994, President Clinton telephoned the neoconservative Democrat Ben Wattenberg and wondered aloud how he’d ended up the manager of the government, and not the leader of the country. That one question propelled President Clinton’s return to the political center. A supporter may have better insight into what an embattled president would wish to say. An opponent can offer better perspective on what such a president needs to say.

So here’s one conservative Republican’s attempt to imagine what a liberal Democratic president should say if he wished in his next State of the Union to speak to the whole nation, adversaries as well as supporters, independents as well as partisans:

The Constitution requires the president to address Congress on the state of our union. But the American people already know the answer. These are difficult times. More Americans have been out of work for longer than at any time since World War II. Homes foreclosed, retirement savings lost, dreams deferred. You don’t need a man in a blue suit in a remote capital to appear on your television to tell you the story of your life.

What you need from your political leaders are solutions to our shared problems. You are not asking for miracles, and I understand that. But you are insisting that your government listen to you — work for you — and deliver some realistic plans to make your life better. And I understand that, too.

For a decade now, almost everything you’ve heard from your federal government has been bad news. From the failure to prevent 9/11 to the disappointing results of the economic stimulus, it seems that government has again and again failed to deliver the results the American people had a right to expect.

Government is supposed to regulate the financial institutions so that they do not take dangerous risks. Government did not do that.

Government is supposed to avoid wars, but when we do fight them, to win them rapidly and decisively. Government did not do that.

Government is supposed to create the conditions for job growth and income growth. Government did not do that.

Government is supposed to defend our borders. And government did not do that.

No one person, and no one political party, is responsible for these failures. We are all responsible. In the heat of campaigns, we fix all the blame for all our problems on the other team. But whether we wear a blue jersey or a red jersey, we know inside that we made these problems together.

From the point of view of the people watching tonight, we in this chamber look a lot alike — look alike and act alike — and very different from the people at home.

We play political games that seem all-consuming to us — but irrelevant to hard-pressed Americans who are looking to their government to revive the economy and bring our troops home in success from Afghanistan and Iraq.

A practical example: The Federal Reserve is our most important tool to fight recession. In April I nominated MIT professor Peter Diamond to the Federal Reserve’s board of governors. There’s no question that Professor Diamond is outstandingly qualified: In fact, just this past October, he won the Nobel Prize for economics.

Yet ten months after I named Professor Diamond, his nomination has not come to a vote.

Incredible as it may seem, any one U. S. senator can stop a vote on any nomination by the president — even a nomination that would otherwise pass the Senate 99 to 1. This power to stop votes is not found in our Constitution. It’s not found in any act of Congress. It’s not even found in the written rules of the Senate. It’s a custom that has grown up over the years — and that has now grown out of control.

Some may say: “Well, that’s fine for you to say now that you are the president. Where were you when Democratic senators were blocking votes on Republican nominations?”

My answer: I agree. The process was abused under President Bush as well.

So let the change start with me and with my political party. In the Bush administration, two outstandingly able lawyers were nominated to appellate judgeships but rejected by Democratic senators without a vote: Peter Keisler and Miguel Estrada. Mr. Keisler went on to become acting attorney general, Mr. Estrada to become one of the country’s leading advocates before the Supreme Court. I want to see them now get the vote they were denied: When vacancies appear in the courts of appeals, I will renominate these two jurists myself.

These secret processes of obstruction should end. And so today I call on the leaders of the two parties in the Senate to end the custom of single-senator “holds” on presidential nominations. Presidential nominees should receive an up-or-down vote within thirty days of their nomination.

Improving the functioning of our institutions — and reform of this Congress — is not merely some tidying-up measure. Rather, it is fundamental to our ability to serve the American people in this time of economic distress.

Let me give you another very practical example of the harm done by the paralysis of our politics.

When my administration arrived in office in January 2009, we confronted the worst economic collapse since the 1930s. We did our best to estimate the depth of the crisis ahead. We got it wrong. As bad as we thought the recession would be, it was worse. We prepared for a fifty-year flood. We got a hundred-year flood. We thought our measures would cap unemployment at about 8 percent. Despite our measures, unemployment has reached almost 10 percent. Unemployment remains almost 10 percent.

The economists tell us that the recovery measures instituted by this administration have achieved dramatic results. Two of America’s most esteemed researchers — one an advisor to John McCain’s presidential campaign, the other formerly a top advisor to President Clinton — have crunched the numbers. They agree that our recovery plan stopped the free fall in the U. S. economy, saved the world from a new Great Depression, and added 2.7 million new jobs.

These are powerfully positive results. But not positive enough. So we need to do more — and we need Congress to join with this administration as partners in the all-important mission of economic recovery.

We can see the future of a better economy already emerging.

Over the past twelve months, we have created more than one million net new jobs in the private sector — while government employment has shrunk by more than 250,000.

Corporate profitability has reached record highs, meaning that companies can afford to hire as demand revives.

Including dividends, the stock market has gained more than 10 percent this year.

If this is “socialism,” what would capitalism look like?

As our private economy expands and government cuts back, Americans are rediscovering savings and thrift.

Through much of the past decade, our national savings rate neared zero. Today, American households are saving $6 out of every $100 they earn. As Americans save more, they are paying down debt. At the beginning of the recession, out of every $100 earned by the average household, almost $18.50 was consumed by financial obligations. Today we are down to $17 — and still dropping.

Hope is in the air, change is within our reach.

Yet we face two great economic challenges:

In the near term, we must do more to accelerate job creation and economic growth.

Then, as our economy recovers, we must put the U. S. government back on the path to a balanced budget.

Job creation begins with monetary policy.

Already, the Federal Reserve is injecting more money into our economy. When the Federal Reserve stopped creating new money in April of last year, our recovery stalled. As it resumed creating money in November, our recovery has revived.

The Federal Reserve board is our most important recession-fighting tool. I am disturbed by recent attacks on the independence of the Federal Reserve. Like all the presidents since the creation of the Federal Reserve a century ago, I will defend the independence of the Federal Reserve.

Job creation continues by reducing the tax burden on individuals and enterprises.

In December, Democrats and Republicans agreed to extend the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003.

I urge that we do even more.

In addition to the Social Security payroll-tax holiday which I signed into law late last year, we should accelerate hiring by reducing our rates of corporate tax, the highest of any major economy.

The right kind of focused, temporary government spending can also be a powerful job creator. Over the next generation, we desperately need to improve our road, air, and rail networks and to modernize our systems for distributing electricity. We should be doing as much as possible of this work now, to spur recovery.

Unfortunately, infrastructure investment has been a victim of our broken politics. The money does not go to the best projects. The money is earmarked by the most powerful politicians. We need a new tunnel under the Hudson. We get a bridge to nowhere.

I propose that all revenues from gasoline taxes, aviation fees, and other similar sources be placed in a fund directed by an independent infrastructure bank. The bank would be permitted to issue bonds up to a certain level, too. Instead of Congress writing a highway bill every five years, the bank would develop a list of priorities — no politics allowed. I’d suggest we have seven directors of the bank. Three would be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Two would be nominated by a conference of the Republican state governors, two more by a conference of the Democratic state governors. The directors would serve fixed and overlapping terms. When we’re balancing the budget, we can move slowly through the list of bank infrastructure priorities. In a year like 2011, when it’s cheap to borrow and workers need jobs, we can bring projects forward faster. Congress would always have the last word, in an up-or-down vote. And Congress would decide whether to increase or reduce the flow of future tax revenues into the infrastructure bank.

Every American will have the reassurance that these new infrastructure projects are not pork barrel. They were not chosen to reach some political deal. The money you pay at the pump or at the airport or in future taxes on carbon dioxide and other pollutants will be reinvested toward faster travel, more advanced telecommunications, and cleaner water.

I don’t expect much applause from mentioning the tax word. But when the time comes to move toward balanced budgets, some new revenues are going to be essential. I know there is a Republican proposal that claims to reach balance without taxes — in 2063.

I think we need to move toward balance faster than that. Our principal reliance should be reductions in government spending for those who need government least, while protecting those who need support most.

We must push for new efficiencies in government health-care programs. Between Medicare, Medicaid, and care for our veterans and service personnel, government spends more than half of all the dollars in our health system. It was already true before the health reform of 2010 — before I was elected president — that American governments state and federal spent more government dollars per American on health care than Canada’s governments spent per Canadian. And again — that’s just government dollars, it does not count private-sector dollars.

Yet all our extra health spending is not buying extra health. We spend more money on health care than any country on earth: seventeen cents out of every dollar of national income. The runner-up is Switzerland: 13 percent. Let’s put it this way: If we spent the same as Switzerland, it would be the near equivalent of getting our entire defense budget for free. Yet the average Swiss lives almost four years longer than the average American. We pay far more and get far less.

Still, even after squeezing all the waste we can — even after slowing the growth of future government health-care spending — without new revenues it will take us far too long to just grow our way to a balanced budget. New revenues will be needed.

Yet we have to be careful. The wrong kind of tax changes can weaken our future economic growth. We don’t want to return to the days of 50 percent income-tax rates.

Instead, we should reform our tax code to lower taxes on work, saving, and investment. We should move to a new kind of tax code, with higher taxes on consumption and pollution.

Imagine this future: Every dollar you save is untaxed. Period. The first $15,000 you spend on basic necessities — that goes untaxed, too. The next $15,000 pays a low rate of tax. Each additional $15,000 of spending is taxed at a slightly higher rate.

What this means is that the successful entrepreneur who earns $1 million from his or her business will face no tax on any money he or she reinvests in the business. If that entrepreneur can get by with a modest lifestyle, they’ll pay a modest rate of tax. If they want to spend the whole $1 million, that’s their business, but they’ll pay a higher rate of tax.

Savers pay less, spenders pay more — we reduce our debt and invest in our future.

In the same way, we should tax the emissions of carbon dioxide that are changing our climate, then use the money to reduce our national debt, fund infrastructure improvements, and lower the taxes paid by working people.

As our economy recovers, it will also change. The future belongs to the nations with the most highly skilled workforces.

Between President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law and the Race to the Top program enacted by the Democratic majority in the previous Congress, we have seen this decade dramatic improvements in federal support for education reform.

If we are to continue to upgrade our schools, we must work together to address the controversial topic of immigration.

Our immigration policy is distorted by three key flaws: too few highly skilled migrants, too many migrants without skills, and the humanitarian and national-security challenge presented by the estimated ten million undocumented and illegal aliens within our borders.

If there’s any area of our politics where agreement should be possible, this is it.

We need to make more visas available for scientists, health-care workers, and computer specialists.

We need to cut back the number of low-skilled entrants who will need more help from government than they can ever pay in taxes.

We need to enforce immigration laws at the workplace, to remove the incentive to immigrate illegally — and to encourage those people who are here illegally to take their savings with them and return home. The federal government has created E-Verify, a reliable system for checking the legal work status of job applicants: 99.5 percent accurate. More than 196,000 employers now use the system, more than 1,400 more join every week.

With this new system in place, I will ask Congress to raise the fines for employment of illegal workers — and to change the law so that employers can no longer use “I didn’t know” as an excuse. It’s the employer’s responsibility to find out.

At the end of a period of effective enforcement, we need a humanitarian solution for the relatively small number of illegal aliens who have sunk deep roots in the United States and who have demonstrated their commitment to this country: serving in the armed forces, paying back taxes, and learning English.

Enforcement first, compassion next. But always our immigration policy should serve the interests of the United States. Nobody gains a right to American citizenship by breaking the laws that define American citizenship.

Let me turn last to the subject that should unite all Americans: the security of our nation.

For ten years, we Americans have divided on some vital subjects, from the Iraq war to terrorist detainees. But tonight I’d like to put these divisions into perspective.

9/11 was not just the deadliest-ever international terrorist attack on the United States. It was also the most complex and sophisticated. To infiltrate nineteen people into this country — maintain communications between them — coordinate them onto four different airplanes: That was an undertaking as ambitious as it was hateful.

In the years since 2001, we have seen more terrorist attacks and attempts against Western countries, including the attack on the Madrid train station in 2004, the attack on the London Underground in 2005, the 2006 plot against targets in the Canadian province of Ontario, last year’s underwear bomber, and the just-foiled plot to bomb Christmas season festivities in Portland, Oregon.

Now notice something: Each of these attempts and plots is less sophisticated than its predecessor, involving fewer people, less communication, and earlier detection by our police and intelligence professionals. Terrorists find it ever more difficult to train, to communicate, and to move money. We will never achieve perfect security. But this is what success in the war on terror looks like: a steady degradation of terrorist capability to do harm.

Presidents make foreign policy, and during elections the major-party candidates stress their differences. In between elections, however, what is most striking are the continuities.

My Iran policy is basically very similar to that of the Bush administration. We unsuccessfully sought dialogue. Now we are building international consensus for ever-tightening sanctions against the Iranian nuclear program. We use unconventional means to disrupt that program. We are developing antimissile technologies to protect our allies from the program in the worst-case scenario that the program becomes operational. We reserve all instruments of power to prevent Iran from going nuclear if other means fail. My policy toward China, India, Latin America, Africa, and other important regions of the world likewise more or less continues along the lines of predecessor administrations.

Yes, of course presidents make changes in U. S. foreign policy. I have ended combat operations in Iraq, moved to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, and I have ramped up hunter-killer drone attacks against terrorist enemies on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

But the changes in foreign policy wrought by any one president in any particular year are usually gradual, incremental, and less impressive than the things that do not change. Ironically those changes that presidents do deliver are often very different from the changes they intended. That’s why President Carter rethought his election commitment to withdraw U. S. forces from South Korea thirty years ago. Why Ronald Reagan took stronger action against apartheid in South Africa than any of his predecessors. Why Bill Clinton first campaigned against George H. W. Bush’s China policy — and then adopted it.

Sometimes late at night in the quiet of the Oval Office, I will light a cigarette, study the portraits on the walls, and ask myself why this is.

Part of the answer is the sheer scope and scale of the global responsibilities of the United States. We can reorient one or perhaps two major policy areas at any given time. The rest of the vast enterprise must inevitably chug forward on lines previously laid down.

Part of the answer is that presidents must often select their policy from a menu of very ugly options. You may not want to leave an army in South Korea, but you want even less to invite a second Korean war. I would have preferred to negotiate a peaceful termination of the Iranian nuclear program. Iran would not negotiate in good faith with me.

But the deepest part of the answer is that once elected, a president must to a great extent shed his or her earlier identity as a party leader. The commitments made by one president become the commitments of the United States. Our friends and allies rely on those commitments — and expect those commitments to endure beyond the administration that undertook them.

We campaign as members of a party. We govern as representatives of the whole nation. My friend, Britain’s Conservative prime minister, David Cameron, put it well recently when he said that “politics shouldn’t be so different from the rest of life, where rational people do somehow find a way of overcoming their disagreements.”

At this solemn gathering of all the component pieces of our national government, let us all recommit ourselves to that bigger and deeper national purpose. We’ve done it before. We can do it again. We must do it again. We will do it again. As we do, we will discover — despite recession and war — that the state of our Union is stronger than ever we knew or dared to hope.