US president pledges to do ‘whatever it takes’ for growth

WASHINGTON - Agence France-Presse

U.S. President Barack Obama. AP photo

U.S. President Barack Obama promised Dec. 7 to do “whatever it takes” to maintain growth in the economy as he announced a summit with business leaders dedicated to job creation.

“This year, I’m going to keep doing whatever it takes to move this economy forward and to make sure that middle class families regain the security they’ve lost over the past decade,” Obama said in his weekly address. “That’s my New Year’s resolution to all of you.”

The comments came one day after data showed U.S. unemployment had fallen for the fourth straight month in December and jobs creation picked up. The Labor Department said the jobless rate slipped to 8.5 percent as 200,000 jobs were added last month.

Obama said the decline showed the country was “heading in the right direction,” but more needs to be done. “We’ve got to keep at it. We’ve got to keep creating jobs,” he said in the address.

‘Fair share’
“And we’ve got to keep rebuilding our economy so that everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share - and everyone plays by the same rules,” Obama continued. “We can’t go back to the days when the financial system was stacking the deck against ordinary Americans. To me, that’s not an option.”

The president announced that on Wednesday, the White House will host a forum called “Insourcing American Jobs,” during which he will discuss with business leaders ways of bringing back home the jobs that had been “outsourced” to foreign markets.