US President Barack Obama last night challenged Congress to enact a $447 billion package of tax cuts and new spending to revive a stalled job market.
With his poll numbers at new lows amid frustration with 9.1% unemployment, Obama called for urgent action on a broad set of proposals he laid out just 14 months before voters decide whether to give him a second term.
"You should pass this jobs plan right away," he said in a forceful, impassioned tone in the televised speech to a rare joint session of Congress.
"The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy," Obama said, taking a swipe at Republicans who have consistently opposed his initiatives.
Obama, who pushed through an $800 billion economic stimulus package in 2009, said his new plan would cut taxes for workers and businesses and put more construction workers and teachers on the job through infrastructure projects.
As fears rise of another US recession and more global economic gloom, G7 finance ministers meeting in France later today are set to encourage countries that can afford it to do more for growth.
US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said on Thursday that efforts to create US jobs could help the world economy regain speed.
Estimates from several economists showed that Obama's jobs package, if passed, could lift US economic growth by one to three percentage points in 2012, add some one million jobs and lower the unemployment rate by about half a percentage point.
Bi-partisan co-operation could be hard to come by in Washington, where a bruising debt feud this summer brought the country to the brink of default and led to an unprecedented US credit downgrade.
During the speech, Republicans reacted to many of Obama's proposals with stony silence. Party leaders said later they would work with the president to find common ground even if they were unlikely to support the entire package.
Obama wants Congress to pass his "American Jobs Act" - which administration officials said would cost $447 billion - by the end of this year and offset the cost with deficit cuts.
He said his plan would "provide a jolt to an economy that has stalled and give companies confidence that if they invest and hire there will be customers".
He proposed extending unemployment insurance at a cost of $49 billion, modernising schools for $30 billion and investing in transportation infrastructure projects for $50 billion. But the bulk was made up of $240 billion in tax relief by cutting payroll taxes for employees in half, to 3.1%, next year and trimming employer payroll taxes as well.
A surprise element for economists was that Obama called not just for an extension of the employee payroll tax holiday but for a more generous tax break.
Obama also said he was seeking to broaden access to mortgage refinancing to help the ailing housing market, drawing rare applause from Republicans during the speech.
