US President Barack Obama has begun an uphill battle for support for a $447bn jobs plan he hopes will rescue a faltering US economy and his own re-election prospects.
A day after unveiling his proposals for tax cuts and public works spending on Capitol Hill he pitched the plan directly to Americans with a speech in Virginia, kicking off a months-long campaign to promote it across the country.
"Everything in it will put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working. Everything in it will be paid for," he told nearly 9,000 supporters at University of Richmond at an event dotted with "2012" signs.
"Next week, I will send it to Congress. They should pass it right away," he said, calling on people to email, tweet, fax, visit, Facebook and even "send a carrier pigeon" to make sure their elected officials get the message they need to act.
"I want you tell your congressperson the time for gridlock and games is over," Obama said.
Earlier the president dared his foes in Congress not to support his plans to cut in half payroll taxes for workers next year, exploiting the traditional Republican desire to reduce the money Americans pay to the government.
"You guys have made pledges never to raise taxes on everybody, ever again. You can't make an exception when the tax breaks are going to middle class people," Mr Obama said, addressing his "good Republican friends."
The president renewed his call on Republicans to permit tax increases for the richest Americans and to close tax loopholes for oil firms and other corporations, setting up a new battle in Congress.
He also welcomed the measured response of some top Republicans to his plan delivered in the House of Representatives, as both sides of the political aisle feel heat from voters frustrated over the economy.
"To their credit, I was glad to hear some Republicans, including your congressmen ... (say) they see room for us to work together. They say they are open to some of the proposals to create jobs," he said.
The basic idea of the jobs plan is to give a sufficient boost to get the stalled recovery over the hump where households, banks and businesses have paid down more of their debt loads and regained the confidence to start spending, lending and hiring again.
It would deliver the economic medicine prescribed in recent weeks by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the International Monetary Fund to prevent a worrisome slowdown in global economic growth from turning into recession.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also can assure his fellow finance officials at the G7 meeting of top industrial nations in Marseilles on Friday the US is pulling its weight.
The mitigating factor is whether a Republican-dominated US House of Representatives will agree to the full $447bn package, an unlikely prospect given their criticism that the $830bn stimulus programme of February 2009 failed to deliver lift-off for the US economy and added to the huge US budget deficit.
The US economy is so scarred by the 2007 housing credit implosion, the bank failures it triggered in 2008 and the deepest recession in 70 years that it is taking a very long time to recover and create jobs.
Republicans sat in silence as Mr Obama invoked the name of Republican icon Abraham Lincoln, the president who kept civil war from breaking up the US 150 years ago.
They also kept quiet as the president pleaded in a campaign-style speech for their support to build roads, improve schools, and cut middle-class taxes.
But in the tense chamber, and in reactions from key Republicans after Mr Obama's high-stakes push for a new assault on 9.1% unemployment, there were timid green shoots of a possible political thaw on a handful of issues.
"The proposals the president outlined tonight merit consideration. We hope he gives serious consideration to our ideas as well," Republican House Speaker John Boehner said after the 45-minute address.
"There are some goals the president outlined that Republicans could certainly work with him on," said a spokesman for Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Brad Dayspring.
However many leading US commentators have expressed doubts as to whether his administration can get the legislation through Congress, particularly as Republicans will be keen to avoid giving Mr Obama a political victory ahead of next year’s Presidential race.
