SALON

Saturday, Oct 6, 2012 4:30 PM UTC

Obama calls on Congress to act on tax cut, housing

By

Topics: From the Wires,

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says a new report showing that the unemployment rate has dropped below 8 percent is a sign the still-sluggish economy is moving forward. But Obama says more needs to be done.

He called on Republicans in Congress to work with Democrats on a plan to cut taxes for 98 percent of Americans and on another bill to help families refinance their homes at lower interest rates. Obama also said Congress should approve his plan for a veterans jobs corps to help former members of the military find work as police officers, firefighters and park rangers.

Obama is blaming congressional Republicans for not passing the legislation.

In his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama said Republicans in Congress “need to stop trying to refight the battles of the past few years and finally start doing something to actually help the middle class get ahead.”

Obama said the country has begun climbing out of the steep hole caused by the Great Recession of 2007-2009. “We’ve come too far to turn back now. And we’ve made too much progress to return to the policies that got us into this mess in the first place,” he said.

Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney have clashed over who will do the most to help the middle class, most recently during this week’s presidential debate in Denver.

Obama got much-needed good news Friday following his disappointing debate performance as the unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent, the lowest level since Obama took office in 2009. Romney said Obama still has not done enough to create jobs.

In the GOP response Saturday, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Romney has a sensible plan to fix the economy, while Obama’s only plan is to repeat the same “failed policies that have buried the middle class” the past four years.

After four years of chronically high unemployment, record debt and higher health care costs, “We need a new direction, because we can’t afford four more years like the last four,” Priebus said.

Follow Matthew Daly on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC

More Matthew Daly.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations