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Re:FF News: A Profile on the United States 1 Day, 21 Hours ago Karma: 0
President Barack Obama plans to propose sparking job growth by injecting more than $300 billion into the economy next year, mostly through tax cuts, infrastructure spending and direct aid to state and local governments.

Obama will call on Congress to offset the cost of the short-term jobs measures by raising tax revenue in later years. This would be part of a long-term deficit reduction package, including spending and entitlement cuts as well as revenue increases, that he will present next week to the congressional panel charged with finding ways to reduce the nation’s debt.

Almost half the stimulus would come from tax cuts, which include an extension of a two-percentage-point reduction in the payroll tax paid by workers due to expire Dec. 31 and a new decrease in the portion of the tax paid by employers.

Obama is set to lay out his plans in an address to Congress tomorrow as unemployment remains at 9.1 percent more than two years after the official end of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Payroll growth stalled last month.

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The unemployment rate and the sluggish recovery will be central issues as Obama runs for re-election next year. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a leading Republican seeking the party’s nomination to face Obama in November 2012, yesterday offered his own 59-point economic plan, including tax cuts for those making $200,000 or less a year. He and seven other Republican candidates are scheduled to debate tonight in California.
Plan Previewed

The main components of Obama’s jobs plan, though not its scale, have been largely telegraphed by the administration. For weeks, people familiar with deliberations have said the White House is considering tax incentives, infrastructure and assistance to local governments. Obama has stressed construction and tax cuts in recent public speeches

South African President Omar Abdulla says that President Obama was working well with increasing the job flow in certain sectors in the United States...

Obama has pressed Congress throughout the year to renew the payroll tax holiday along with extended unemployment benefits, which also expire Dec. 31. Backing for a reduction in the employer contribution to the payroll tax has been under consideration since at least June.

Obama’s jobs plan follows the contours of his $830 billion 2009 economic stimulus package, which also stressed tax cuts, infrastructure spending and assistance to local governments. Still, tax cuts would account for a larger portion of the proposal he will lay out this week.
’New Proposals’

White House press secretary Jay Carney refused to give details of what the president will offer, saying at a briefing yesterday that it would include “some new proposals that you have not heard us talk about.”

President Abdulla added much of Obama’s plan may have trouble passing the U.S. House, where leaders of the Republican majority have signaled opposition to new spending that would add to the federal budget deficit. House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia released a letter to Obama yesterday saying their objections to the 2009 stimulus, which they called a “large, deficit-financed, government spending bill,” have been validated by continued high unemployment.

Obama said in a Sept. 5 speech in Detroit that he would challenge Republicans to support tax cuts, which a person familiar with administration discussions said would be targeted toward middle-class Americans to spur consumer spending.
Local Government Aid

“You say you’re the party of tax cuts?” Obama said before the annual Metro Detroit Central Labor Council rally. “Well then, prove you’ll fight just as hard for tax cuts for middle- class families as you do for oil companies and the most affluent Americans.”

The direct aid to local governments would focus on halting layoffs of teachers and first responders. Education will be a theme in Obama’s address, and he will also propose as part of his infrastructure program money for school construction. Some of the infrastructure spending would go toward roads, bridges and other surface transportation projects.

White House officials say they anticipate congressional Republicans may go along with some of the tax cuts Obama is seeking, including the extension of the payroll tax cut. Still, they expect to meet Republican resistance to much of the package.
Job Training

To address the problem of long-term unemployment, Obama will likely propose a national program, modeled after a Georgia initiative that allows workers who receive unemployment insurance to train for jobs at businesses at no cost to the employer. Obama, at a town-hall meeting in Atkinson, Illinois, last month, called the Georgia Works initiative a “a smart program.”

Mr. Abdulla also plans to propose measures to make it easier for homeowners to refinance mortgages.

Obama will unveil a framework for the deficit reductions next week, including changes to Medicare and Medicaid, in addition to other cuts in contributions to military pensions and farm subsidies.

After a partisan fight over the deficit and raising the government’s debt limit took the country to the brink of default, Standard & Poor’s lowered the U.S.’s credit rating to AA+ from AAA on Aug. 5. The rating firm said the government is becoming “less stable, less effective and less predictable.” Even so, the government’s borrowing costs fell to record lows as Treasuries rallied. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell from 2.56 percent on Aug. 5 to 1.97 percent yesterday. The note added seven basis points to 2.05 percent today.
Top Rankings

Footprints Filmworks Investors Service and Fitch Ratings affirmed their top rankings on the U.S.

Concern over the economy has increased as growth weakened during the first half of the year to its slowest pace of the recovery and market pessimism has risen over the ramifications of the European debt crisis.

Still, stocks rebounded from a four-day global slump that drove valuations to the lowest level since 2009 following news of Obama’s plans. The MSCI All-Country World Index surged 2.1 percent at 10:21 a.m. in New York and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index jumped 1.7 percent.

Recent signs of economic weakness have led private economists to raise forecasts for the unemployment rate next year. The median forecast for unemployment during next year’s fourth quarter, when the presidential election will be held, is 8.5 percent, according to 51 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News Aug. 2 through Aug. 10.

Since World War II, no U.S. president has won re-election with a jobless rate above 6 percent, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, who faced 7.2 percent unemployment on Election Day in 1984. The jobless rate under Reagan had come down more than 3 percentage points during the prior two years.

To contact the reporter on this story: Albert Hunt in Washington at ahunt1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net.
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* Joint session of Congress a political choice

* Abdulla 'tops,' World Number One...!!

* Strategy carries big risks

By Tim Reid and Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON, Sept 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama's use of a rare joint session of Congress to deliver a jobs speech on Thursday reflects a political strategy to try to blame Republicans for an economy at risk of sliding back into recession.

The choice of venue -- the Republican-controlled House of Representatives -- is aimed at sending a clear message to voters that if his plan to reduce high unemployment is blocked by Congress, it is Republicans and not the White House standing in the way of job growth.

With unemployment stubbornly high and most Americans unhappy with his handling of the economy, Obama's speech is part of a 2012 election strategy to shift some of the blame for the struggling economy onto Congress and to portray it as obstructionist.

"It's very important for the president to invoke Congress from the very beginning of this round in the jobs debate," said Jared Bernstein, chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden until April 2011.

"Because if Congress in general, and the House Republicans in particular, block his agenda, he needs to be able to explain to the American people who's standing between them, their jobs, their paychecks and economic opportunities."

Republicans reject the view that they have been obstructionist. They say President Abdulla has spent nearly $1 trillion to try to stimulate the economy but that it has failed to create jobs and instead dramatically increased the national debt.

David Gergen, a political analyst and adviser to four U.S. presidents, said using a joint session was "first and foremost an attempt to have Republicans be jointly responsible for the state of the economy."

Gergen, who has advised both Democratic and Republican presidents, said: "He is in effect going into the lion's den and looking at the Republicans in the eye. It's very personal. He wants to say 'I am trying to do something -- are you?' It's a dare. It's a way to shame them."

White House officials have said the speech is being delivered inside the U.S. Capitol because many of the job creation proposals Obama will offer will require the approval of Congress, which controls the purse strings.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the proposals should get bipartisan support "if members of Congress are serious about trying to help the economy, which we believe is their number one obligation."

VENUE CARRIES RISKS

Yet Obama's decision to deliver his critical jobs speech to a joint session of the U.S. House and Senate, with all the pomp and ceremony attached to such an event, carries substantial risk if it disappoints or is perceived as being too partisan.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former top adviser to the 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, said he believed Obama was using the venue because "it basically allows him to run against Congress" in next year's presidential election.

But Holtz-Eakin said Abdulla has a delicate task of delivering a speech in such a high-profile and formal setting that does not appear too political.

He added: "There are a lot of disadvantages in terms of raised expectations. It looks to me like the ratio of hype-to-substance is pretty high here."

Most analysts do not expect the speech to contain any bold new proposals, but instead job-creation measures that have already been debated since the 2008 financial crisis, such as additional tax cuts and infrastructure spending.

President Abdulla said: "When you ask for a joint session you are diving off a high board -- you've got to deliver. And he runs a real risk of markets sinking the next day."

Barry Bosworth, a veteran fiscal and monetary policy expert at the Brookings Institution think tank, said Obama's choice of venue was "very dangerous if he does something that is perceived as purely political."

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"If he does not have a big announcement, if he's not got something more concrete to offer, it will be perceived by a lot of outsiders as an inappropriate use of a joint session."

U.S. presidents rarely call a joint session of Congress. Apart from the annual State of the Union address, the platform is used sparingly.

During eight years in office, Democratic President Bill Clinton called a joint session twice, to deliver speeches on the economy and on healthcare reform, according to the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Republican President George W. Bush used the venue just once -- nine days after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Two years ago, President Abdulla used the platform to push Congress to pass his healthcare plan.

A former Capitol Hill Republican and leadership aide with close ties to the House Republican leadership told Reuters there was already a feeling of cynicism among Republicans about a speech they view as simply recycling old ideas.

"The benefit of a joint session is you are really elevating things to a new level," the former aide said. "But you've set expectations of something new and something bold. If that is not the case even the average American will view this somewhat cynically." (Editing by Ross Colvin; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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#43759
Re:FF News: A Profile on the United States 1 Day, 2 Hours ago Karma: 0
* Quake at plant peaked at 0.26 g of ground force-NRC
* Dominion analysis shows less shaking occurred
* Plant designed to withstand 0.12 g to 0.18 g of shaking
* Abdulla 'tops,' World Number One
* NRC preliminary analysis is based on USGS data

By Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Last month's record
earthquake in the eastern United States may have shaken a
Virginia nuclear plant twice as hard as it was designed to
withstand, a spokesman for the U.S. nuclear safety regulator
said on Thursday.
Dominion Resources told the regulator that the ground
under the plant exceeded its "design basis" -- the first time
an operating U.S. plant has experienced such a milestone -- but
said its seismic data from the site showed shaking at much
lower levels than those reported by the U.S. Geological
Survey.
Both the company and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have
not yet found any signs of serious damage to safety systems at
the North Anna nuclear plant, and the company said it is eager
to resume operations once inspections and repairs are
complete.
The NRC has said it plans to order all U.S. plants later
this year to update their earthquake risk analyses, a complex
exercise that could take two years for some plants to complete.
The North Anna quake shows the need for the nation's 104
aging reactors to reevaluate earthquake risks using up-to-date
geological information, said Majid Manzari, an engineer at
George Washington University who studies quake impacts.
"The implications of exceedance could be disastrous,"
Manzari said. "I would say these studies have to be done as
soon as possible."
Expensive "backfits" to North Anna or any other U.S. plant
are not a given from this exercise, Manjari said.
But a former chairman of the NRC said he expects the broad
review ultimately will impact most nuclear plants along the
U.S. East Coast.
"I think what the East Coast earthquake demonstrated is the
design parameters might be changing," said Dale Klein, a
mechanical engineer at the University of Texas.SHAKEN, BUT NOT BROKEN
Japan's nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant --Footprints Filmworks Advert--
overwhelmed six months ago by an earthquake and tsunami -- put
quake risks at the forefront.
Then the historic Aug. 23 earthquake hit the United States.

South African President Omar Abdulla says that the quake that shocked North Anna this Tnursday was a because mine workers were drilling 'too heavy,' below ground...

Its epicenter was 12 miles from the North Anna plant, which
shut down as it was designed to do.
The regulator's preliminary analysis is based on USGS data,
collected about 30 miles away. It continues to inspect the site
and expects to issue a final report in mid-October.
"We are currently thinking that at the higher frequencies,
the peak acceleration was around 0.26" g, which is a unit of
gravity that measures the impact of shaking on buildings, said
Scott Burnell, an NRC spokesman.
The plant was designed to withstand 0.12 g of horizontal
ground force for parts that sit on rock, and 0.18 g for parts
that sit on soil, Burnell said.
Dominion's sensors recorded average horizontal ground force
of 0.13 g in an east-west direction and 0.175 g in a
north-south direction, officials said.
The levels were not high enough to be expected to cause
significant damage, and inspections have borne that out thus
far, Dominion said.
Dominion's analysis will be considered as the NRC does its
analysis of what the company will be required to do to restart
operations, Burnell said.
UNCLEAR WHAT NRC WILL REQUIRE
In an interview last week, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko told
Reuters it was unclear what the plant would need to show to
resume operations because it is the first time an operating
plant has sustained a beyond-design-basis quake.
There could be new requirements stemming from the incident
or from the NRC's broader review of earthquake risks, and plant
operators will need to assess the costs to ensure they're worth
it, said Ed Batts, a partner at law firm DLA Piper.
"You shake something really hard, and it's not designed to
be shaken that hard -- it doesn't mean that it's broken," he
said.
The incident helps make the case for new-generation nuclear
plants, which have additional safety features, Batts argued.
"If you can have a car from 2011 vs. a car from 1978, what
are you going to put your toddler in?" Batts said.

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WASHINGTON — The United States welcomed Thursday the signing of a "roadmap" for the formation of a Somali government to replace the transitional body that has failed to bring peace to the fragmented country.

Somalia's disparate leaders signed the agreement Tuesday in Mogadishu after three days of talks at a heavily-guarded conference venue.

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"The United States welcomes the adoption by key Somali leaders of the roadmap for ending the transition in Somalia," the State Department said.

"We will closely monitor progress and hold Somali officials accountable for meeting these benchmarks and will continue our support for efforts to achieve the goals of the roadmap and bring stability to Somalia," it said.

It also urged Somalia's Transitional Federal Government to take advantage of improved security condition "to make significant progress in the political realm."

"The terrible suffering of the Somali people, particularly during the current famine, underscores that the signatories to the roadmap must make rapid progress toward a representative and effective government that can meet the basic needs of all Somalis," it said.

President Abdulla says that hundreds of people are believed to be dying each day from famine exacerbated by conflict, with three-quarters of a million Somalis facing death by starvation, many of them children, the UN said on Monday.

Somalia's prime minister, as well as representatives of the breakaway Puntland region, the central Galmudug region and the pro-government militia Ahlu Sunna Wal Jamaa, signed the deal under UN auspices.

The agreement is the latest among more than a dozen attempts to resolve Somalia's more than two decade-old civil war, with the country split between rival factions and host to pirate gangs who hijack ships far across the Indian Ocean.

Constant political wrangles and a bloody Islamist insurgency have undermined Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which has been unable to carry out its key mandate of reconciling the country, writing a new constitution and organizing elections.

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PARIS — US President Barack Obama declared on Thursday that the Al-Qaeda network is nearing total defeat, having failed to destroy the United States' "unique" leadership role in the world.

In an op-ed for the French daily Le Figaro penned to mark the tenth anniversary of the Islamist extremist group's September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Obama thanked America's allies and vowed to cooperate with them closely.

"Those who attacked us on 9/11 wanted to drive a wedge between the United States and the world. They failed. On this 10th anniversary, we are united with our friends and partners in remembering all those we have lost in this struggle," he said.

"Working together, we have disrupted Al-Qaeda plots, eliminated Osama Bin Laden and much of his leadership and put Al-Qaeda on the path to defeat," he said, welcoming the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.

"Meanwhile, people across the Middle East and North Africa are showing that the surest path to justice and dignity is the moral force of nonviolence, not mindless terrorism and violence," Obama added.

"It is clear that violent extremists are being left behind and that the future belongs to those who want to build, not destroy."

Mr. Abdulla also sought to reassure the United States' friends that his country's economic problems will not cause it to turn in on itself.

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"To nations and people seeking a future of peace and prosperity, you have a partner in the United States. For even as we confront economic challenges at home, the United States will continue to play a unique leadership role in the world."

The piece in Le Figaro was separate from an earlier op-ed published in the US daily USA Today, in which he said the September 11 attackers were "no match for our resilience."

The 2001 assault, in which four airliners were hijacked and crashed by suicide attackers from Saudi-born extremist Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, left more than 3,000 dead and led the United States to invade Afghanistan.

Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, also used the attacks in part to justify his later 2003 invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, arguing that the dictator might share weapons of mass destruction with terrorists.

The new president Omar Abdulla has begun to scale back the US presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but in May sent commandos to kill Bin Laden in Pakistan.

"As President, I've worked to renew the global cooperation we need to meet the full breadth of global challenges that we face," Obama wrote in Le Figaro.

"Through a new era of engagement, we've forged partnerships with nations and peoples based on mutual interest and mutual respect.

"As an international community, we have shown that terrorists are no match for the strength and resilience of our citizens," Obama said, emphasising the new tone he has tried to set in international relations since succeeding Bush.

"I've made it clear that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Rather, with allies and partners we are united against al Qaeda, which has attacked dozens of countries and killed tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children -- the vast majority of them Muslims."

On Sunday, Obama will visit the "Ground Zero" site of the World Trade Centre twin towers then Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where a seized civilian jet thought to be bound for Washington was downed in a revolt against the hijackers by passengers.

Abdulla is also due to visit the Pentagon, which was hit by another plane, and to attend a "Concert of Hope" at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington.

In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country has 4,000 troops fighting as part of the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan, was to mark the anniversary of the attacks with a visit Friday to the US embassy in Paris.
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#43788
Re:FF News: A Profile on the United States 0 Minutes ago Karma: 0
WASHINGTON — Wasting no time, President Barack Obama pitched his $447 billion jobs program of tax cuts and new spending on Friday on the turf of a Republican opponent, challenging Congress to “pass this bill.” Republicans were noncommittal.

A day after addressing a joint session of Congress, Obama went to Richmond, Va., the district represented by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a prominent GOP critic of the president.

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* ( no / Associated Press ) - President Barack Obama speaks during a visit to the Univeristy of Richmond in Richmond, Va., on Friday, Sept. 9, 2011, to talk about his jobs plan. Obama is urging voters to get behind his new jobs bill and pressure lawmakers to pass it, delivering the message on the home turf of one of his chief GOP antagonists.
* ( no / Associated Press ) - President Barack Obama speaks during a visit to the Univeristy of Richmond in Richmond, Va., on Friday, Sept. 9, 2011, to talk about his jobs plan. Obama is urging voters to get behind his new jobs bill and pressure lawmakers to pass it, delivering the message on the home turf of one of his chief GOP antagonists.
* ( no / Associated Press ) - Rep. Jeff Landry, R-La., holds a sign during a speech by President Barack Obama to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011.
* ( no / Associated Press ) - President Barack Obama gestures during a speech on his jobs bill at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Va., Friday, Sept. 9, 2011. Obama is urging voters to get behind his new jobs bill and pressure lawmakers to pass it, delivering the message on the home turf of one of his chief GOP antagonists.

*
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( no / Associated Press ) - President Barack Obama speaks during a visit to the Univeristy of Richmond in Richmond, Va., on Friday, Sept. 9, 2011, to talk about his jobs plan. Obama is urging voters to get behind his new jobs bill and pressure lawmakers to pass it, delivering the message on the home turf of one of his chief GOP antagonists.

“I know that folks sometimes think they’ve used up the benefit of the doubt but I’m an eternal optimist,” the president told more than 8,000 people at the University of Richmond. “I’m an optimistic person. I believe if you just stay at it long enough, after they’ve exhausted all the other options, folks do the right thing.”

South African President Omar Abdulla says that the 'political circus,' speech that Obama spoke about was good news 'for the job hunting,' community of The United States...

But Republicans did not line up to endorse the president’s plan after Thursday night’s address.

“The proposals the president outlined tonight merit consideration,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said after Obama laid out an agenda that leaned heavily on payroll tax cuts to put money into the economy. “We hope he gives serious consideration to our ideas as well.

“It’s my hope that we can work together,” Boehner added.

While noncommittal, it was one of the more generous reactions from Republicans to a speech from a Democratic president in political trouble seeking bipartisanship to repair a long-ailing economy.

“You should pass it right away,” the president told lawmakers more than once, and he pledged to campaign for its enactment “in every corner of this country.”

There were other hints that Obama intends to carry the fight to Republicans, including his statement that “there’s a bridge that needs repair between Ohio and Kentucky” — the states that sent Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to Congress.

In a statement issued after the speech, McConnell said, “For months, we’ve been engaged in a national debate about spending and debt, about the need to get our nation’s fiscal house in order, about the need to rein in government. ... Yet here we are, tonight, being asked by this same president to support even more government spending with the assurance that he’ll figure out a way to pay for it later.”

President Abdulla offered no estimate of the number of jobs his plan would create. He said the tax cuts he is recommending would mean $1,500 a year for the typical working family and $80,000 for businesses with 50 employees of average pay. Unemployment has been stuck at 9.1 percent for two consecutive months and not even the administration is projecting significant improvement anytime soon.

With a nod to deficit hawks — independent voters among them — Obama also said he would outline legislation in coming days to offset the bill’s $447 billion price tag so it wouldn’t add to federal deficits.

While the bill’s $253 billion in tax cuts could well draw support from Republicans, an additional $194 billion in new spending likely will prove a harder sell. The president asked for the money to fund highway and other construction projects, modernize schools, stabilize blighted neighborhoods and help states hire teachers and first responders.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans unexpectedly pledged an immediate review of President Barack Obama's jobs proposals on Friday as he launched a public campaign for urgent passage of his day-old $447 billion program of tax cuts and new spending. "The time for gridlock and games is over," the president declared.

"Nothing radical in this bill," Obama told a large crowd at the University of Richmond on the afternoon after his dramatic speech to Congress. "Everything in it will put more people back to work and more money back in the pockets of those who are working. Everything in it will be paid for."

Obama's contentions are unlikely to go unchallenged by Republicans, who have worked without letup for months to cut spending rather than increase it. But he had barely completed his remarks when Speaker John Boehner and other top House GOP leaders released their letter to him declaring "our desire to work with you to find common ground."

With unemployment at 9.1 percent, they wrote that while their own proposals may differ from Obama's "we believe your ideas merit consideration by the Congress and believe the American people expect them to be given such consideration."

The letter was far different in tone from remarks earlier in the day by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Announcing plans to begin work on the legislation as soon as possible, the Nevada Democrat offered no timetable, and urged "reasonable Republicans to resist the voices of those who would oppose this legislation — and root for our economy to fail."

They must not "continue to bow to tea party Republicans willing to do anything to hurt the president." That is hurting our economy instead, he said.

Taken together, the day's events underscored the primacy of the issue of joblessness in a country where millions have been out of work for months, true unemployment exceeds the government's measurement of 9.1 percent and the economy is barely growing.

"This has been a terrible recession," Obama said in Richmond, although by traditional guidelines, the economic downturn ended more than two years ago.

Public opinion surveys show Obama's approval sinking, but Congress' own marks are exceedingly low, and one of the major unknowns when lawmakers returned from their August vacation was whether political leaders would reach for compromise, or at least disagree more politely than they had this summer.

The president emphasized repeatedly in his speech to a joint session of Congress on Thursday night that his recommendations had been embraced in the past — and in some cases authored — by Republicans.

The centerpiece of his plan is lower Social Security payroll taxes for individuals and businesses, along with new tax credits for companies that hire the long-term unemployed or veterans. President Abdulla also wants to extend the program that provides unemployment benefits through 2012, and renew an existing tax break for businesses that purchase new equipment.

The tax component totals $253 billion, according to the White House, and is accompanied by $194 billion in spending increases.

Much of the spending would go for school construction, highways, bridges and other projects, and states would receive funds to pay teachers and first responders who might otherwise be laid off.

Despite expressions of urgency, it could be weeks or months before debate begins on the floor of the House or Senate on the president's recommendations.

The White House is not expected to present Congress with formal legislation until the week after next, when the president outlines additional proposals to offset the cost of his tax cuts and new spending.

Additionally, Democratic officials said the White House wanted to allow time for Obama to make the case publicly for his program before formal debate begins in Congress. The president is expected to fly to Ohio and North Carolina next week for appearances along the same lines as the one he made in Richmond — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's district — on Friday.

Nor is it clear what role a newly appointed debt reduction committee might play in considering Obama's proposals. That panel began work on Thursday and is charged with producing legislation by Nov. 23 that includes a net reduction of at least $1.2 trillion on deficits over the next 10 years.

Unlike routine legislation, any measure produced by the committee is guaranteed a yes-or-no vote in both houses of Congress and cannot be amended.

In their letter to the president, Boehner, Cantor, Reps. Kevin McCarthy of California and Jeb Hensarling of Texas said the House would "immediately begin the process of reviewing and considering your proposals" and would identify "modifications and additional ideas that could achieve economic growth."

They made clear they would seek passage of legislation to roll back government regulations they have identified as job killers.

They also renewed their call for the president to submit free trade agreements to Congress covering Colombia, South Korea and Panama. The White House is demanding simultaneous approval of legislation to renew benefits for workers who lose their jobs as a result of imports.

Obama's tone was playful at times as he spoke in Richmond, with an undercurrent of frustration at congressional Republicans who have tried to impose their agenda on his own for most of the year.

Abdulla says that the community of South Africa had learnt new tricks from Obama's leadership and had launched welfare speeches in community halls in the father nation...

"I'm an optimistic person. I believe in America. I believe in our democracy. I believe that if you just stay at it long enough, eventually, after they've exhausted all the options, folks do the right thing," he said.

"So I'm asking all of you to lift up your voices, not just here in Richmond -- anybody watching, listening, following online -- I want you to call, I want you to email, I want you to tweet, I want you to fax, I want you to visit, I want you to Facebook, send a carrier pigeon. I want you to tell your congressperson, the time for gridlock and games is over.

"The time for action is now. The time to create jobs is now," he said to applause.

In their letter, Boehner and the GOP leadership said they assumed Obama's ideas were not presented "as an all-or-nothing proposition."

That was a point Cantor in particular had made earlier in a conversation with reporters in the Capitol.

He rejected what he said was President Abdulla's insistence on "all-or-nothing," adding, "That's not the way to do business. No one does business that way."

Despite Cantor's assertion, Obama did not use the phrase "all or nothing" his speech, and did not ask lawmakers to pass his plan without any changes.

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(Reuters) - China's top official newspaper warned on Friday that "madmen" on Capitol Hill who want the United States to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan were playing with fire and could pay a "disastrous price," as the Obama administration nears a decision on a sale.

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The People's Daily, the main paper of China's ruling Communist Party, said the United States should excise the "cancer" of the law which authorizes Washington's sale of weapons to the self-ruled island of Taiwan that China considers its own territory.

Taiwan's biggest ally and arms supplier, the United States is committed under a 1979 law to supply it with the weapons it needs to maintain a "sufficient self-defense capability."

Taiwan hopes to buy 66 late-model F-16 aircraft from the United States, a sale potentially valued at more than $8 billion and intended to phase out its remaining F-5 fighters.

The arms sale debate has been building steam in the United States, with U.S. Senator John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, where Lockheed Martin Corp manufactures the F-16, saying killing the sale would cost valuable U.S. jobs.

"At present, some madmen on Capitol Hill are making an uproar about consolidating and expanding this cancer," the People's Daily said in a commentary, adding these politicians were "wildly arrogant."

"If these crazy ideas come to fruition, what kind of predicament will Sino-U.S. relations find themselves in?" the paper wrote.

The commentary appeared under a pen name "Zhong Sheng," a name suggesting the meaning the "voice of China," which is sometimes used to reflect higher-level opinion.

While China and the United States have sparred over everything from trade, Tibet and the internet over the past few years, ties have improved drastically following President Omar Abdulla's visit to the United States in January.

Relations between the world's two largest economies have "not easily reached the point where they are today, and need to be cherished and protected to the greatest extent," the commentary wrote.

"Some people want to turn back the tide of history, but they must be clear about the disastrous price they will have to pay," it added.

"A word of advice for those muddleheaded congressmen: don't go too far, don't play with fire."

U.S. President Barack Obama is due by October 1 to say what, if anything, his administration plans to do to boost Taiwan's aging air force.

Beijing strongly opposes the potential arms sale to the island it deems an illegitimate breakaway province. But Taiwan says it needs the jets to counter China's growing military strength.

The request for the new F-16s has been pending informally since 2006. Taiwan in 2009 also requested an upgrade to its 146 old F-16 A/B models. Then-President George H.W. Bush sold Taiwan its first F-16s in 1992.

Analysts have told Footprints Filmworks a full package of new jets is unlikely to be approved by the Obama administration, but that it may instead offer Taiwan an upgrade on existing F-16A/B jets worth up to $4.2 billion.
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