US President Obama said Thursday the ongoing Wall Street protests express “the frustration of the American people.”
In a flurry of the ongoing Wall Street protests, Obama urged the Congress to “stop the political circus” and take the right course by passing his USD$447 billion jobs bill.
Obama has been lobbying for the bill against Republican opposition since unveiling it a month ago.
“We need to put Americans back to work now,” Obama said at a White House news conference.
“Any senator out there who's thinking about voting against this jobs bill ... needs to explain exactly why they would oppose something that we know would improve our economic situation at such an urgent time.” Obama said.
With the European debt crisis worsening, the Senate needs to act quickly to “guard against another downturn” in the US economy, said Obama.
In early September Obama proposed his Jobs Act legislation which includes: payroll taxes cut, and public works projects funded, extension of unemployment insurance, etc.
Obama added that he was “comfortable” with a proposal by Senate Democrats to impose a tax on people who make at least USD$1 million a year. The tax would generate USD$450 billion, enough to cover the jobs bill.
“To the extent this is a vent for frustration and anger at the current circumstances, I think a lot of people understand that,” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Republicans used their weekly address to criticize the plan.
The US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner accused Obama of focusing on his re-election rather than the economy.
Republican Senator John Thune called the bill “nothing but a rehash of the same failed ideas he’s already tried, combined with a huge tax increase.”
