“I’m fine with the approach they have taken,” Mr. Obama said when asked at a news conference about the tax proposal put forth by Senate Democrats to cover the $445 billion cost of a jobs proposal that the Senate is expected to take up soon. The bill would, among other features, seek to stimulate the economy by lowering payroll taxes on workers and employers.

Mr. Obama, who previously had suggested paying for the jobs bill by limiting the value of deductions taken by households earning more than $250,000 a year, said the alternative offered by Senate Democrats would also meet his objective of “asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share.”

He said Congress would still have to make other changes to the tax code as part of a broader program to reduce the deficit over the next 10 years, in keeping with the debt agreement reached this summer.

But while he pounded away at his Congressional opposition to explain why they opposed the Democratic plan, the essence of the latest proposal contained the same kernel that Republicans have denounced before: it would distribute a quick and significant tax cut to the many, to be paid back over the years by the few.

His news conference, which lasted more than an hour, was the latest in a series of appearances intended to keep the pressure on Congress to act on proposals that face fierce Republican opposition, but that even if never enacted seem destined to form the core dispute of the election campaigns for Congress and the White House in 2012.

“We will just keep on going at it and hammering away until something gets done,” Mr. Obama said at the close of the news conference. “And I would love nothing more than to see Congress act so aggressively that I can’t campaign against them as a do-nothing Congress.”

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said in remarks issued on Thursday that “what this week has shown, beyond any doubt, is that Democrats would rather talk about partisan legislation that they know won’t pass than about actually passing legislation we know would create jobs.”

“With 14 million Americans out of work, this is completely unacceptable,” he said. “We’re wasting valuable time.”

New monthly data on unemployment is to be released Friday morning, and with protesters on the streets of Washington in sympathy with those who have been marching on Wall Street, the political worries over the state of the economy were unmistakable.

Mr. Obama said that independent experts agreed with his own assessment, which boils down to this: “The economy needs a jolt right now.”

Mr. Obama said there is “no doubt” that the American economy is weaker now than it was at the beginning of 2011, and he called for the Senate to pass his jobs act when it takes up the measure next week, saying the bill will help protect the United States if the European debt crisis creates further turmoil in the global economy.

“The economy is just too fragile to let politics get in the way of action,” Mr. Obama said in remarks before he took questions from reporters in the White House East Room.

“This is not a game,” the president said, “The problems Europe is having right now could have a very real effect on our economy.” He said that the jobs bill “could help guard against a downturn if the situation in Europe gets any worse.”

Mr. Obama blamed the economy’s weakness on the downturn in Europe, slow job growth and what he called the “debacle” of this summer’s debt ceiling negotiations.

Mr. Obama has been traveling the country to push his jobs plan, and he has been far more aggressive about challenging Republicans to “explain,” as he said on Thursday, “why they would be opposed to common-sense ideas” that he said had bipartisan support in the past.

Mr. Obama also talked about the Occupy Wall Street protests that have been gaining strength in recent days. “Americans understand that not everybody has been following the rules,” he said. “These days a lot of folks that are doing the right thing aren’t rewarded, and a lot of folks who aren’t doing the right thing are rewarded.”

He expressed solidarity with some of the protesters, saying that they were “giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.”

Mr. Obama did not say whether he would veto a bill currently before the Senate that accuses China of manipulating its currency. He said that “it is indisputable that they intervene heavily in the currency markets,” but added that the United States has to make sure that whatever steps it takes against China will be upheld by the World Trade Organization.

Mr. Obama defended his administration’s handling of a federal loan guarantee for Solyndra, the solar equipment manufacturer that declared bankruptcy last month after borrowing $528 million with the government’s backing. He said that the loan program to companies like Solyndra predated his time in office, but added, in response to a question from a reporter, that “the process by which the decision was made was on the merits. It was straightforward.”

He said that “of course there were going to be debates internally when you’re dealing with something as complicated as this,” an apparent reference to e-mails that have surfaced that showed that administration officials had questioned the company’s financial viability.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/us/politics/obama-says-he-would-accept-a-surtax-on-high-incomes.html?partner=rss&emc=rss