Obama jobs push gets steely welcome

US: Even praise for Republican icon Abraham Lincoln failed on Thursday to melt the icy welcome President Barack Obama’s skeptical political foes gave his fiery, high-stakes jobs speech.

Packed in the House of Representatives for a rare joint session of the US Congress, Republicans sat in stony silence as Obama invoked the president who kept civil war from sundering the United States a century and a half ago.

They also kept quiet as the embattled president pleaded in a campaign-style speech for their support to build roads, improve schools, and cut middle-class taxes as part of a $447 billion drive to revive the still-ailing US economy.

But in the tense chamber, and in reactions from key Republicans after Obama’s high-stakes push for a new assault on 9.1 percent unemployment, there were timid green shoots of a possible political thaw on a handful of issues.

“The proposals the president outlined tonight merit consideration. We hope he gives serious consideration to our ideas as well,” Republican House Speaker John Boehner said after the 45-minute address.

“There are some goals the president outlined that Republicans could certainly work with him on,” said a spokesman for Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Brad Dayspring. He cited overhauling unemployment benefits to promote work, lowering the corporate tax rate, rolling back regulations Republicans often blame for smothering job growth, and helping small business owners.

“But this shouldn’t be an all or nothing proposition, we should work quickly to pass the areas we can agree on to help people immediately, while we work through those areas where differences remain,” said Dayspring.

And Obama drew a roar of approval and a standing ovation from Democrats and Republicans alike when he declared that weary, struggling Americans could not wait until the November 2012 elections for polarized politicians to help.

“The people who sent us here — the people who hired us to work for them — they don’t have the luxury of waiting 14 months,” said Obama, whose personal political fortunes will turn on his handling of the sour US economy.

Republicans also outnumbered Democrats in applauding Obama’s call for cuts to the Medicare health program for the elderly and disabled, cutting the corporate tax rate, cutting red tape, and passing free trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

But they scoffed and chuckled audibly when he called for higher taxes on the richest Americans and wealthiest corporations and insisted “this isn’t class warfare” — Republicans’ traditional charge in response to such efforts.

About half of them also declined to applaud when Obama talked about cuts to Medicare as part of a bipartisan push to rein in galloping US deficits, with the US national debt now well above $14.7 trillion.

And they sat quietly as Republicans applauded when Obama said some of his foes “sincerely believe” that the cure to US economic ills is to “simply cut most government spending and eliminate most government regulations.”

But both sides followed some of the basic rules of US political theatre — applauding First Lady Michelle Obama as she arrived, and giving Obama standing ovations when he arrived and when he delivered the customary farewell: “May God Bless the United States of America.”

Washington, Friday, AFP