President Barack Obama heads to the home turf of his Republican congressional adversaries tonight to lay out a choice for voters as much as a plan for lawmakers.

His address to a rare joint session of Congress on jobs, the top concern of voters as the 2012 election campaign gets under way, will frame the government's response as one of either action or delay on reviving the economy. On taxes, the signature Republican issue, he will cast himself as a champion of relief for the middle class rather than for the wealthy.

Obama will propose a more than $300 billion stimulus plan in the Republican-controlled House's chamber as job growth stalls and the unemployment rate hovers above 9 percent. His job-approval ratings are scraping new lows as public doubts about his stewardship of the economy rise.