WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, undaunted by the new Republican majority in Congress, unveiled an ambitious progressive agenda in his State of the Union speech, proposing tax increases for the wealthiest Americans coupled with more breaks for the country’s shrinking middle class. Republican leaders quickly rejected Obama’s economic proposals.

In a shift from tradition, Obama’s nationally televised address Jan. 20 to a joint session of Congress was less a laundry list of new proposals and more an attempt to sell a broadly optimistic story of a national economy emerging from the “shadow of crisis.” Obama said it was time for Americans to “turn the page” on years of economic troubles, terrorism and lengthy wars.

Obama’s address marked the first time in his Presidency that he stood before a Republican-controlled Congress. Yet the shift in the political landscape has also been accompanied by a burst of economic growth and hiring and a soaring stock market as the country climbed out of the Great Recession that greeted Obama when he took office in 2009.

With his once-sagging approval ratings on the rise, a more confident Obama sees little incentive in acquiescing to Republican demands.

While calling for a new era of comity, Obama outlined an agenda that showed he was not going to curtail his own plans in favor of Republican priorities.

While he appealed for “better politics” in Washington and pledged to work with Republicans, the president touted bread-and-butter Democratic economic proposals and vowed to veto Republican efforts to dismantle his signature achievements — in particular his health care and financial reform laws.

“We can’t put the security of families at risk by taking away their health insurance or unraveling the new rules on Wall Street or refighting past battles on immigration when we’ve got a system to fix,” Obama said. “And if a bill comes to my desk that tries to do any of these things, I will veto it.”

Democrats seated on one side of the House chamber repeatedly rose to their feet and applauded the president, while Republicans who intend to vote down his proposals sat silently.

The president sought out more common ground on foreign policy, pledging to work with Congress on a new authorization for military action against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, as well as legislation to guard against cyber-attacks.

In a rare move away from his own party, Obama also renewed his call for fast-tracking free trade agreements with Asia and Europe, generating more applause from pro-trade Republicans than skeptical Democrats.

Obama used one of his biggest platforms, a speech that was nationally televised to tens of millions of Americans, to highlight the issue of growing economic inequality, a critical marker for the next presidential campaign that will choose his successor.

“Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well?” Obama asked. “Or will we commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort?”

Answering his own question, Obama said: “So the verdict is clear. Middle-class economics works. Expanding opportunity works. And these policies will continue to work, as long as politics don’t get in the way.”

The centerpiece of Obama’s economic proposals was an increase in the capital gains rate on couples making more than $500,000 annually, to 28 percent, coupled with higher taxes on some estates and a fee on the roughly 100 U.S. financial firms with assets of more than $50 billion.

Much of the $320 billion that would be raised would be ticketed for the middle class, in the form of a $500 tax credit for some families with two working spouses, expansion of the child care tax credit and a $60 billion program to make community college free.

Republicans were quick to reject the president’s proposals which seemed more about giving his Democratic Party a platform in the 2016 election than outlining a realistic legislative agenda.

House Speaker John Boehner said,. “Finding common ground is what the American people sent us here to do, but you wouldn’t know it from the President’s speech tonight,” he said.

Boehner said Obama’s economic initiatives weren’t just “the wrong policies, they’re the wrong priorities: growing Washington’s bureaucracy instead of America’s economy.”

The new Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who delivered the official Republican response to Obama’s speech, painted a less rosy picture of the economy.

“We see our neighbors agonize over stagnant wages and lost jobs. We see the hurt caused by canceled health care plans and higher monthly insurance bills,” said Ernst.

The president came out of his party’s bruising November election defeat — in which Democrats lost control of the Senate — with a surprising burst of activity.

He has already vowed to veto several legislative measures that are coming out of the new Republican-controlled Congress — measures ranging from approving the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf coast to an effort to use budget actions to undo his executive actions on immigration that have removed the threat of deportation for more than 4 million immigrants in the country illegally.

He also vowed to veto any congressional attempt to impose new sanctions on Iran as negotiations proceed on neutering that country’s nuclear program and prevent development of a nuclear weapon.

While the economy dominated the President’s address, Obama also promoted his recent decision to normalize diplomatic relations with Havana and urged lawmakers to begin ending the trade embargo with Cuba that he said was “long past its expiration date.”

Among the guests sitting with first lady Michelle Obama was Alan Gross, the American man who spent five years in a Cuban prison and was released as part of the deal to end the freeze between Washington and Havana.

In a nod to the concerns of Cuban dissidents and pro-democracy advocates, Boehner’s guest was Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, who spent 17 years in a Cuban prison. e father was a well-known Cuban dissident who was killed in a car accident that his family believes was suspicious.

Obama appeared at ease throughout the address, adlibbing at times and responding to the audience reaction. As he neared the end of his speech, he declared, “I have no more campaigns to run.” As Republicans erupted in laughter, Obama retorted, “I know, because I won both of them.”

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By Steven R. Hurst. AP writers Julie Pace, Nedra Pickler, Josh Lederman, Jim Kuhnhenn and Stacy A. Anderson contributed to this report