Obama Promises Action On Economy

There is “no quick fix” for the economy, Barack Obama said today in a speech at the White House, but his team is working on a new series of proposals to boost growth and hiring. Obama spoke following the Labor Department’s latest employment report, which showed that private payrolls had jumped a better-than-expected 67,000 in August but that the unemployment rate inched up from 9.5% to 9.6%, Bloomberg reports.

Obama urged Congress to pass the small-business aid bill it's currently working on, and promised more to come. “I will be addressing a broader package of new ideas next week,” Obama promised, saying the economy is already headed in “the right direction; we just have to speed it up.” For a look at what the president’s planning, click here. Robert Gibbs dialed down expectations a bit yesterday, saying the new plan would be tightly focused. “Some big new stimulus plan is not in the offing,” he said. (More Barack Obama stories.)