United States President Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed to focus on job creation and faster economic growth as the US senate passed the debt ceiling bill to avert a major economic crisis at the last moment.
"In the coming months I'll continue also to fight for what the American people care most about: new jobs, higher wages and faster economic growth," Obama said in his address to the nation from the White House, after the senate passed the bill that would increase borrowing limit and reduce deficit by $2.4 trillion.
Obama, who is soon expected to sign the bill that was also passed by the House of Representatives, said: "While, Washington has been absorbed in this debate about deficits, people across the country are asking, what can we do to help the father looking for work? What are we going to do for the single mom who's seen her hours cut back at the hospital? What are we going to do to make it easier for businesses to put up that 'now hiring' sign?"
"I've said it before. I will say it again. We can't balance the budget on the backs of the very people who have borne the biggest brunt of this recession. We can't make it tougher for young people to go to college or ask seniors to pay more for health care or ask scientists to give up on promising medical research because we couldn't close a tax shelter for the most fortunate among us," he said.
Obama said: "Everyone's going to have to chip in. That's only fair. That's the principle I'll be fighting for during the next phase of this process."
The Congress has now approved a compromise to reduce the deficit and avert a default that would have devastated the economy, Obama said.
"It was a long and contentious debate, and I want to thank the American people for keeping up the pressure on their elected officials to put politics aside and work together for the good of the country," he said, adding, this compromise guarantees more than $2 trillion in deficit reduction.
Terming it as "a first important step" to ensure deficit reduction, he said, "as a nation, it should live within its means."
"Yet it also allows us to keep making key investments in things like education and research that lead to new jobs, and assures that we're not cutting too abruptly while the economy's still fragile," he said.
Growing the economy, Obama said, is not just about cutting spending. "It's not about rolling back regulations that protect our air and our water and keep our people safe. That's not how we're going to get past this recession. We're going to have to do more than that."
The US President said: "And that's why, when Congress gets back from recess, I will urge them to immediately take some steps -- bipartisan, commonsense steps -- that will make a difference, that will create a climate where businesses can hire, where folks have more money in their pockets to spend, where people who are out of work can find good jobs."
"We need to begin by extending tax cuts for middle-class families so you have more money in your paychecks next year. If you've got more money in your paycheck, you're more likely to spend it, and that means small businesses and medium-size businesses and large businesses will all have more customers. That means they'll be in a better position to hire."
