2 Boston Marathon survivors to attend state of the Union

Two survivors of the Boston Marathon bombings were invited by first lady Michelle Obama to attend the State of the Union speech, the White House said Monday. Mrs. Obama invited Jeff Bauman and Carlos Arredondo, along with the fire chief of Moore, Okla, which was devastated by a tornado, an openly gay NBA player and others to sit with her and Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, and Valerie Jarrett, senior presidential adviser, at the president's speech Tuesday, officials said. Bauman had both of his legs blown off and Arredondo came to his aid in the April 15, 2013, marathon bombings that killed three people and injured more than 250. The White House said Fire Chief Gary Bird represents all of the people who rallied to help Moore after a tornado flattened the community, killing 25 people. Jason Collins, a 12-year NBA veteran, became the first male player on major American sports teams to come out openly as gay. Also invited was Joey Hudy, of Anthem, Ariz., who at age 14,attended the 2012 White House Science Fair and President Obama fired the boy's "extreme marshmallow cannon," launching a marshmallow across the East Room. Since then, Joey has appeared at Maker Faires across the country and, at 16, became Intel's youngest intern when he began an internship with the company this year. Another invited guest is Kathy Hollowell-Makle, who was named the 2013 Teacher of the Year in the District of Columbia Public Schools. She began as a Teach for America corps member in the district in 1998 and now teaches at Abram Simon Elementary in southeast Washington. Aides said Obama's State of the Union will include proposals he could pursue without congressional approval -- a plan Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., called "a threat." "We need to ensure the American people that we can get something done, either through Congress or on our own," senior strategic adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." The White House and Congress can work together to pass immigration reform, extend unemployment benefits and pass the farm bill, which has lingered on the congressional to-do list for two years, Pfeiffer said. "But the president is not going to tell the American people that he's going to wait for Congress. He's going to move forward in areas like job training, education, manufacturing, on his own to try to restore opportunity for American families," he said. Those moves would take the form of executive orders, Pfeiffer said. Pfeiffer said he didn't see this approach as "confrontational." But Paul, who appeared on the CNN program after Pfeiffer, said he disagreed with Pfeiffer's view. "It sounds vaguely like a threat," Paul said. "And I think it also has a certain amount of arrogance in the sense that one of the fundamental principles of our country are the checks and balances, that it wasn't supposed to be easy to pass legislation. You had to debate and convince people." Presidents since George Washington have issued executive orders. Woodrow Wilson had the most, with 1,803. President George W. Bush issued 291. So far, Obama has issued 167. Paul and other Republican lawmakers said Sunday they would work with the White House on narrow issues in which Republicans and Democrats agree. Paul said Republicans would be happy to move forward on parts of an immigration overhaul if Democrats changed from demanding what he characterized as an all-or-nothing approach. "On immigration, maybe half of immigration reform, 80 percent of Congress agrees to," Paul said. "But to my mind, the Democrats are saying they want everything -- citizenship, everything they can get -- all at once, or nothing, whereas I think there's an in-between where we could find work visas for a lot of the people that are here and normalize their existence, as long as ... it's dependent on border security," he said. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told "Fox News Sunday" his party was willing to compromise, but only up to a point. "We're anxious to help him create jobs, but we're not going to go over and endorse more spending, more debt, more taxes and more regulation," he said.