WASHINGTON — President Obama yesterday declared the dawn of a new era guided by American ingenuity and defined not by the magnitude of the current economic crisis but by an innovative response to it.

Speaking to a nation shaken by joblessness and a collapsing stock market, the president tried to rally the public with optimism and ambition, saying the country will not overcome its economic challenges without also making the long-term changes in energy and healthcare that he promoted during the presidential campaign.

"The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation," Obama said in his debut address to a joint session of Congress and to the nation.

"The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth."

In his 52-minute speech, he also hinted at a massive bank bailout in the works, one costing "probably more than we've already set aside" to pay for it, as well as some form of government aid for the domestic automobile industry that he said will not come "without cost."

In the wake of those hard messages, he offered assurances that his administration is going "line by line" through the federal budget in search of wasteful and ineffective programs.

But rather than promoting his agenda point by point, the president asked Americans to be open to proposals he will lay out in the days to come, and to make a shared commitment to "come together and lift this nation from the depths of this crisis."

The tableau in the House chambers was a striking one. The African-American president stood at the podium in a dark suit and bright red tie, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first woman elected to that post, poised behind him holding the gavel. Vice President Joe Biden completed the image of racial and gender equity, which was broadcast around the world.

The speech was Obama's first to a formal assembly of Congress. While widely regarded as his inaugural State of the Union address, presidents in their first year of office traditionally do not call it that.

With economic anxiety gripping much of the public, the history of the moment was a mere sidelight to questions of whether the Obama administration can guide the nation through the troubled times.

GOP DISAGREES

Delivering the Republican response to the president's speech, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana echoed Obama's homage to American ingenuity but disputed the solutions the president has hinted at or outlined.

"Democratic leaders say their legislation will grow the economy," Jindal said in a broadcast address. "What it will do is grow the government, increase our taxes down the line, and saddle future generations with debt. ... It's no way to strengthen our economy, create jobs, or build a prosperous future for our children."

BIG BAILOUTS AHEAD

Delivering his address on the eve of Lent, liturgical Christianity's 40-day period of self-denial, Obama called for a break from the excesses of the past and for setting out on a period of discipline and restraint.

"We have lived through an era where, too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity. ... Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day," the president said.

But Obama also foreshadowed the massive spending in the near future, nodding to bailouts of the banking and auto industries while not offering specific details about them.

He said the nation cannot "walk away" from the automobile industry, but gave no clues to how he wants the government to guide the restructuring of the troubled automakers.

He said he intends to hold banks "fully accountable" for the assistance they receive, and that they "will have to clearly demonstrate how taxpayer dollars result in more lending for the American taxpayer."

But in a nod to the size of the bank bailout under consideration, Obama said the plan he is crafting "will require significant resources from the federal government — and yes, probably more than we've already set aside."

The cost of action will be great, he said, but the "cost of inaction will be far greater, for it could result in an economy that sputters along for not months or years, but perhaps a decade."

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION

The president cast his proposals to help the economy as short-term expenditures. He said he will cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term and pledged his budgets will be "honest," rather than rely on gimmicks to mask deficits or overestimate revenue.

He also promised to follow a budget principle of identifying payment for all new programs, an idea that goes by the shorthand "paygo" among budget hawks.

At the same time, the president was laying the groundwork for some of his key agenda items, including environmental initiatives and healthcare reform, by making the case that solving those problems is interlinked with the cause of economic recovery.

Obama renewed his call for a so-called "cap-and-trade" system to combat global warming, which would set limits on greenhouse gas emissions and force companies that exceed them to buy permits.

Proponents call the system a key step in curbing climate change. Critics say it would raise energy prices and hamstring the economy. The issue promises to spark a heated debate in Congress, and its prospects are uncertain.

Turning to healthcare, the president promised that his budget later this week will include a "historic commitment to comprehensive healthcare reform, a down payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable healthcare for every American."

The plan will invest in electronic health records and new technology, he said, and will launch an increased effort to cure cancer — a disease, he noted, that has touched his own family. Obama's mother died of cancer in Hawai'i when he was a young man.

Still, he did not say how the spending plan will begin reducing the ranks of the more than 47 million people in America without coverage, a potentially contentious process that is sure to stoke an ideological battle over government's role in providing healthcare.

Obama also introduced some ideas about education, in part by setting a new goal: that by 2020, the U.S. will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.

Obama also asked every American to get at least one year of post-high-school education, in college or through job training — promising that if those people will commit to community service, the government will make sure they can afford higher education.

In an implicit comparison to the Bush administration, but without citing Iran or any other nation by name, he declared that "a new era of engagement has begun."

He said he will work more closely with old allies on a range of issues, including terrorism, cyber attacks, disease and poverty.

"For we know that America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, but the world cannot meet them without America," Obama said.