MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Obama job-creating speech will announce a 300 billion dollars plan, says US media

The US President must get unemployment down from 9% if he wants a second chance at the White House

US President Barack Obama will unveil a 300 billion dollars package to create new jobs in an address to Congress on Thursday, US media reports citing Democratic sources.

The proposed new spending, to be announced by Mr Obama in a nationally televised speech to Congress, would be offset by budget cuts, CNN said, signaling that the Democratic president hopes to mollify the concerns of Republican fiscal hawks resistant to his jobs ideas.

Bloomberg News said the plan would inject more than 300 billion dollars into the economy next year through tax cuts, spending on infrastructure, and aid to state and local governments.

President Obama would offset those short-term costs by calling on Congress to raise tax revenues in a deficit-cutting proposal he will lay out next week, the news agency reported, without citing sources. There was no immediate comment from the White House.

Obama's aides have refused to go public with the estimated cost of the package or provide many specifics in advance, except to say that the proposals will have a “quick and positive” impact on boosting jobs at a time of stubbornly high US unemployment.

Confidence in President Obama's management of the economy has been hit by months of bad economic news and several polls on Tuesday showed fresh declines in his job approval ratings.

Obama hopes to start reversing this trend in an address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, in which he will try to convince voters that he has a better economic recovery plan than his Republican opponents.

“We need to do things that will have a direct impact in the short-term to grow the economy and create jobs and the president will put forward proposals that will do just that,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed Obama's job approval rating at a low of 44%, while an ABC News/ Washington Post poll found that six in 10 Americans now rate the President's job on the economy and jobs negatively.

A third survey by Politico and George Washington University found that 72% of voters believe the US is either strongly or somewhat headed in the wrong direction, a jump of 12 per cent since last May.