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WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said Friday he intends to present a new package of proposals, including tax cuts and targeted spending, to spark job growth to boost the struggling U.S. economy.
A strong motivation is to repair the economy significantly before congressional elections in November, in which Obama's Democratic Party is expected to lose a number of seats.
Obama spoke in the Rose Garden after the August jobs report came out better than expected, showing the private sector adding 67,000 new jobs last month and revising upward the numbers from June and July. But unemployment ticked upward to 9.6 per cent as more people entered the job market, and the president said it was not good enough.
"That's why we need to take further steps to create jobs and keep the economy growing, including extending tax cuts for the middle class and investing in the areas of our economy where the potential for job growth is greatest," Obama said.
Administration officials say a big new stimulus bill like last year's $862 billion measure is not in the offing; nervous lawmakers looking toward November's balloting would not be expected to approve an expensive new measure. The mammoth federal debt is a major complaint of Republicans and a growing conservative movement in the country.
Obama said he would propose a new set of ideas next week.
He is likely to detail them during a speech on the economy Wednesday in Cleveland, Ohio, midway through an economy-focused week capped by a rare White House news conference.
Obama's package could include a number of provisions that have languished in Congress for much of the year, including infrastructure bonds for municipalities and extensions for a series of tax breaks for businesses and individuals that expired at the end of 2009. Democratic leaders are considering making one of the tax breaks permanent, for businesses that invest in research and development.
They also are considering extending a law passed in March that exempts companies that hire unemployed workers from paying taxes on those workers' Social Security government pension plans through December or more.
Obama is continuing to prod the Senate to pass a bill that would provide about $12 billion in tax breaks for small businesses and a $30 billion fund to help unfreeze small business lending. Republicans have likened the bill to the unpopular bailout of the financial industry early in the recession.
Additionally, the president wants to make permanent the portion of George W. Bush's tax cuts that affect the middle class.
