WASHINGTON — Emboldened by a stronger economy and a series of recent policy initiatives, President Obama on Tuesday night made clear that he is committed to cementing a liberal legacy and aimed to reframe the broader debate on what constitutes American success.

In his sixth State of the Union address, Obama celebrated many of the most ambitious, progressive policies he put in place shortly after taking office and called for more, making an unabashed pitch for expansive government action on the economy, scientific research, infrastructure, education and the environment.

President Obama shakes hands with House Speaker John Boehner before delivering his State of the Union address Tuesday night. Obama reveled in past victories while laying out an aggressive agenda for the next two years. The Associated Press

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“At this moment – with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry and booming energy production – we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth,” Obama said. “It’s now up to us to choose who we want to be over the next 15 years and for decades to come.”

A year ago, after a difficult start to his second term, the president articulated a narrower set of goals and vowed to pursue them on his own. Now, despite serious losses in the midterms that gave Republicans full control of Congress, the president called for the kind of political bridge-building that propelled his first presidential bid and the inaugural that began his second term.

Brimming with confidence, the president struck a colloquial tone as he rattled off a series of positive statistics about the country’s recent economic rebound. “This is good news, people,” he reminded hundreds of lawmakers and dignitaries gathered on the House floor.

He also laid claim to the iconic civil rights legacy of the past, tying together the historic march on Selma, Alabama, with the recent protests in Ferguson, Missouri, arguing Americans could find common ground on issues of voting rights and criminal justice.

COURTING CONFRONTATION

The president is still counting on being able to strike a handful of deals with congressional Republicans, who are now firmly in the majority, and he identified trade as one of the most promising areas where they could find common ground. But Obama emphasized that any efforts to roll back his most significant achievements would meet fierce resistance.

Obama’s policy victories have come in two distinct periods. In his first two years, he forged landmark legislation with a Congress led by his Democratic Party. For the past year, he has courted confrontation with congressional Republicans, defying them with go-it-alone initiatives on climate change, immigration and foreign policy.

Tuesday’s address reflected the latter approach. Rather than striking a tone of compromise, he proposed $320 billion over the next decade in new taxes targeting wealthy individuals and big financial institutions to fund community-college tuition and paid leave for working parents. That’s an idea that has prompted derision from the Republican majority.

“We will not be limited by what will pass this Congress, because that would be a very boring two years,” White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said in an interview before the speech.

But the president is not writing off the Republican-controlled House and Senate, aides say. He will need their support if he wants to expand significantly on a domestic policy record that already includes the economic recovery, the Affordable Care Act, the first carbon limits on power plants, regulatory changes for financial institutions and the deferral of possible deportation for millions of illegal immigrants.

“For the policy of trade, he’s going to have a different coalition than with the policy of immigration or than with surface transportation,” said James Thurber, a professor who directs American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.

DIFFERENCES ON DISPLAY

It remains unclear, however, how easy it will be to muster any of those alliances, which would depend in part on Republican leaders’ willingness to edge aside conservatives as the 2016 presidential contest gets underway.

For conservative Republicans the next two years represent a test of how hard they want to try to dismantle the kind of government he has put in place over the past six years.

“The challenge is there is no way to stop the president without a confrontation,” said Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint, adding that Republican lawmakers are worried that forcing a government shutdown would backfire.

Obama and his aides, by contrast, seem eager for a conflict that will put their differences with the Republican on full display. The president said he is determined to finalize the administration’s proposed rule limiting greenhouse-gas emissions on existing power plants, set aside more public land for conservation and strike a global climate deal when the United Nations convenes negotiations in Paris at the end of the year.

MOVING FORWARD

On race relations, by contrast, he talked in more specific terms.

“We may have different takes on the events of Ferguson and New York,” he said. “But surely we can understand a father who fears his son can’t walk home without being harassed. Surely we can understand the wife who won’t rest until the police officer she married walks through the front door at the end of his shift.”

Foreign policy did not occupy quite as much space in this year’s address, in part because the president is less eager to talk about places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, where Islamist militants continue to battle the United States and its allies.

But Obama has accelerated the transfer of prisoners from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in recent months, and defended his efforts to contain Russian aggression and called for lifting the embargo against Cuba.

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