Obama vows to boost jobs

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama promised at a White House jobs forum on Thursday to take "every responsible step to accelerate job creation," including some ideas that he said could be put into action quickly. He cited an expanded program to help make more U.S. homes energy-efficient as an example.

He also mentioned trade measures and possible new tax incentives among ways to stop job losses that are the worst since the 1930s.

"This has been a tough year, with a lot of uncertainty," Obama said as he wrapped up the half-day brainstorming session with more than 100 CEOs, academics, small business and union leaders and local officials. "There's no question that it's difficult out there right now,"

The president said there were some ideas that could be put to work almost immediately and other ideas that will become part of legislation for Congress to consider. He listed "moving forward on an aggressive agenda for energy efficiency and weatherization" as a prime candidate for quick action.

With unemployment levels above 10 percent, Obama said "We cannot hang back and hope for the best."

But, mindful of growing anxiety about federal deficits, Obama also tempered his upbeat talk with an acknowledgment that government resources could only go so far and that it's primarily up to the private sector to create large numbers of new jobs.

He said while he's "open to every demonstrably good idea ... we also though have to face the fact that our resources are limited."

Some Republicans were unmoved by Obama's comments.

"If the president was serious about allowing the private sector (to) succeed, he could have left a trillion dollars in the private economy with permanent, broad-based tax cuts instead of taking it out of the economy and wasting it on inefficient government programs that led to fraud and waste," Wesley Denton, a spokesman for Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said in a statement.

As Obama and participants focused on the big picture, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was more narrowly focused, telling reporters that Congress will tap unused funds from last year's $700 billion Wall Street bailout to pay for new spending on roads and bridges and to save the jobs of firefighters, teachers and other public employees.