Obama looks to create jobs, put GOP on the spot

By BEN FELLER

WASHINGTON – Facing a frustrated public and a skeptical Congress, President Barack Obama will pitch at least $300 billion in jobs proposals aimed at getting Americans back to work quickly and forcing Republicans to take a share of the responsibility for solving the country's economic woes.
The underlying political strategy: If Obama can't get his ideas passed heading into his re-election year, he at least hopes to show why he shouldn't take the fall.
In a rare speech Thursday to a joint session of Congress, Obama is likely to offer a package of ideas that would affect people in their daily lives — tax relief, unemployment insurance, spending to support construction jobs, aid to states to keep people in their jobs. Businesses would get their own tax breaks. And he will promise a long-term plan to pay for it all.
Yet all of it ultimately will depend on a Republican-controlled House that has a different economic approach and no political incentive to help a Democrat seeking a second term.
White House officials said Obama would formally send his plan — coined by the administration as the American Jobs Act — to Congress next week.
Obama's chief of staff, William Daley, urged Republican lawmakers to abandon their politically driven refusal to work with Obama and take action on his jobs proposal. Daley declined to provide details of the president's jobs proposal, saying only that it would help teachers, construction workers, first responders and small businesses, and that many of the ideas have been supported by Republicans in the past.
"The only reason some of these people may not support it now is because of the politics that's going on, which is again unfortunate for the American people," Daley said.
He said the jobs programs would be paid for without borrowed money, and hinted that some of the funds would come from higher taxes on wealthier Americans. They "ought to pay a little more," Daley said.
Obama's goal is also to put Republicans on the spot to act — in their face, and in their chamber. Obama is expected to speak for up to 45 minutes, beginning at 7 p.m. EDT.
Given the country's political and economic reality, two key questions hang over the president's speech: Will any of his ideas get approved, and will they actually work?
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he was hopeful that there would be some proposals the White House and Republicans could agree on.
"We know the two parties aren't going to agree on everything, but the American people want us to find common ground and I'm going to be looking for it," Boehner said.
But some other Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, were criticizing the planned proposals even before the president had uttered a word. McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Obama seemed determined to simply reintroduce economic policies that haven't worked.
"It's time the president start thinking less about how to describe his policies differently and more time thinking about devising new policies," McConnell said.
A Pew Research poll out this week also found majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents skeptical that the proposals Obama is expected to discuss would do a lot to create jobs. And a series of new polls by major news organizations finds that the mood is downright dismal about the direction of the country, with Obama's standing and approval on the economy at or near the lowest levels of his presidency.
Yet voters are holding all leaders accountable, supporting the White House's point that Congress is under pressure to act, too. An Associated Press-GfK poll found that more people assign chief blame for the economy to former President George W. Bush and congressional Republicans and Democrats than to Obama.
Democrats familiar with the president's plans say the White House sees the speech as a pivot point after spending the spring and summer focused on negotiations over deficit spending. They say the fall offers the president a window to press congressional Republicans to act on his economic plan — and if they don't, Obama will spend 2012 running against them as obstructionists. Whether that's enough to win over voters is another matter.
Obama's chief campaign strategist, David Axelrod, said the president won't start with ideas that have been "preapproved" by Republicans in Congress.
"Ultimately, the test for any of these ideas: Are they right? Can they help the economy? Can they help get people back to work?" Axelrod told The Associated Press.
The president's plan to pay for his ideas is a political necessity in a time of fiscal austerity. Deficit-boosting stimulus spending is out. But here, too, he is banking on a lot of help.
Obama plans to cover the cost by asking a new congressional supercommittee debt panel to go beyond its target of finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction by the end of November, so the extra savings can pay for short-term economic help. That debt panel met for the first time Thursday.
In one upbeat sign for those looking for a Washington compromise, Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor have told Obama they see potential areas of agreement on jobs — for example, infrastructure, which Obama has pushed repeatedly. Cantor also signaled to reporters Wednesday that he might support a payroll tax cut.
"It is not games and politics for people out across this country. It's real," Cantor said about the state of the economic debate. "The fact that we have had such sustained joblessness in this country, the fact that people are doing anything they can in many instances just to stay afloat and to pay the bills, it's real."
At the heart of Obama's plan will be extending, by one more year, a payroll tax cut for workers that went into effect this year. The president wants the payroll tax, which raises money for Social Security, to stay at 4.2 percent rather than kick back up to 6.2 percent. That tax applies to earnings up to $106,800.
Obama is expected to seek continued unemployment aid for millions of people receiving extended benefits. That program, too, is set to expire at year's end.
Among the other potential proposals by Obama:
_Tax credits for employers who hire.
• A major school construction initiative.
• Aid to local governments to prevent layoffs of teachers and other workers.
_Other tax help for businesses, such as continuing to allow them to deduct the full value of new equipment.
Since Obama took office in January 2009, nearly 2 million Americans have lost jobs. Almost 14 million people are out of work.
The unemployment rate, which stood at 5 percent at the start of the deep recession and 7.8 percent when Obama began in office, is at 9.1 percent. Most troubling is the trend line. After a period of steady if modest job creation, employers have stopped hiring.

With Jobs Out As CEO, Apple Looks To The Future

By RACHEL METZ

SAN FRANCISCO – Since Steve Jobs' return to Apple Inc. in 1997 as CEO, the company has been on an unparalleled upswin g, highlighted by the immense popularity of the iPad and iPhone.
Now, with Jobs no longer leading, Apple will have to prove it can keep its momentum. If the recent past is any indication, the company will continue to move forward.
Apple said late Wednesday that Jobs, 56, resigned from the CEO post, in a move that seems motivated by his ongoing, yet still unspecified health issues. Jobs had taken an indefinite medical leave in January, marking his third such leave in seven years. Jobs, who co-founded Apple in 1976, previously survived pancreatic cancer and received a liver transplant.
Taking on the role of board chairman, Jobs now passes the CEO role Tim Cook, 50, the company's chief operating officer. Cook had been acting CEO since January. For years, he has been running Apple's day-to-day operations, and has long been seen as the natural successor. He also served as Apple's leader for two months in 2004 while Jobs battled cancer, and again for five-and-a-half months in 2009 when Jobs received a liver transplant. The company has thrived under Cook's leadership, briefly becoming the most valuable company in America earlier this month.
Cook is not nearly as recognizable as Jobs, who after returning from a 12-year hiatus in 1997 became the very public face of Apple, clad in his signature blue jeans, black turtleneck and wire-rimmed glasses when trotting out the company's iPhones, iPads, iPods at immensely popular and anticipated media events. Though Jobs has looked increasingly frail, he emerged from his leave twice this year to tout products at such events: First, he unveiled the second version of Apple's iPad tablet computer in March. Then, in June, he resurfaced to show off Apple's iCloud music synching service.
But while Jobs is the most recognized person at Apple, he is not the only one responsible for the company's success. Many industry watchers believe that despite his importance, Apple will continue to innovate and not just survive, but thrive.
Says Cross Research analyst Shannon Cross: "Steve Jobs put in place at Apple a culture of innovation."
And its innovation has translated to sales. With Cook running the company, Apple sold 9.25 million iPads during the most recent quarter, which ended in June, bringing sales to nearly 29 million iPads since they first began selling in April 2010. Apple also sold 20.3 million iPhones in the same period, which was millions more than analysts expected. The company's stock has risen 8 percent since Jobs announced his most recent medical leave.
Cook's track record at Apple is strong. The first time he was in charge back in 2004, things went so well that Apple promoted him from executive vice president to chief operating officer in 2005.
During the second time, which lasted from mid-January to the end of June 2009, Apple released a new version of the iPhone and updated laptop computers on schedule. The company also announced that its iTunes app store hit a major milestone: More than one billion apps were downloaded within the first nine months of its existence.
Apple's stock rose 62 percent during that time, satisfying investors' concerns over Jobs' absence.
Cook, an Alabaman with short, gray hair and a broad, thin-lipped smile, has been an asset to Apple since his arrival in 1998. He is credited with tuning Apple's manufacturing process to solve chronic product delays and supply problems. His inventory management skills helped Apple build up its $72.6 billion hoard of cash and marketable securities — funds that it can use to keep its lead in the portable electronics market.
Like IBM, McDonald's or Ford, all of which lost visionary CEOs, Apple is not necessarily dependent on the immortality of the genius behind it, says Terry Connelly, dean of the Ageno School of Business at Golden Gate University in San Francisco.
"A company is dependent on its ability to institutionalize that genius in the corporate DNA," he says. "Apple shows every sign of having done that. We will see that when we see how Cook responds to competitive pressure."
And, as Cross points out, Cook won't be leading Apple alone. His supporting team includes Jonathan Ive, who oversees the elegant, minimalist design of Apple's products; Ron Johnson, who runs Apple's stores; Philip Schiller, the marketing chief; and Scott Forstall, who supervises the iPhone software.
"The bench at Apple is extremely strong," Cross says. "He has a good group of executives behind him."
And consumers — the group Apple really depends on to make its products popular — may not be that affected by the change.
Apple customers don't buy the company's products because of Steve Jobs, Gartner Research analyst Michael Gartenberg says, they buy Apple products because they're Apple products. Without Jobs, he believes the company's challenge will be the same as it was with him: continuing to find ways to raise the bar with its consumer electronics.
"Yes, this is quite some transition at the end of Steve's role and his time at Apple, but it doesn't mean Apple itself will fundamentally change," he says. "Certainly Apple's competition would be foolish to think this is a situation they could somehow capitalize on."