By Vivienne Russell | 12 February 2013

US President Barack Obama’s political opponents have warned him they won’t support any call for tax rises in his State of the Union speech.

Obama is scheduled to deliver the annual keynote address, the first of his second presidential term, to Congress tonight. He is expected to focus on the economy and is likely to make a plea for approval of more federal funding for infrastructure, manufacturing jobs and early education, funded by a mixture of tax rises and moderate spending cuts. The aim, according to a White House spokesman, is to help ‘grow the middle class’ and tackle the deficit.

A series of automatic, major spending cuts, known as the sequester, are scheduled to kick in on March 1. The sequester, postponed from January, threatens to send the US economy back into recession. Obama wants to push the deadline back again to put together a deficit-reducing deal that balances spending cuts with tax rises.

But senior Republicans are already suggesting there will be no legislative backing for Obama’s strategy.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said: ‘Clearly the president wants more revenue for more government. He's gotten all the revenue he's going to get. Been there, done that.’

House Speaker John Boehner has also indicated that any further tax increases would be out of the question. Speaking yesterday, the Ohio congressman said the federal government needed to focus on budgeting and cutting spending.