Jobs No. 1 focus for 2010, Obama vows
WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Job creation is the No. 1 focus in 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday as he called for a jobs bill during his first State of the Union.
"People are out of work. They are hurting. They need our help," Obama told a joint session of Congress "And I want a jobs bill on my desk without delay."
In addition, Obama proposed taking $30 billion bailed-out banks have repaid to the Treasury to help community banks extend credit small businesses need to stay afloat.
"Now, the true engine of job creation in this country will always be America's businesses," he said. "But government can create the conditions necessary for businesses to expand and hire more workers."
Obama proposed a new small-business tax credit that he said would go to more than 1 million small businesses hiring new workers or raising wages.
"While we're at it, let's also eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment," he said, "and provide a tax incentive for all large businesses and all small businesses to invest in new plants and equipment."
The worst of the recession storm may have passed, Obama said, "but the devastation remains."
Obama reiterated efforts his administration undertook to pull the U.S. economy out of the recession and improve unemployment numbers, including cutting taxes, extended unemployment benefits, passing the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act -- also known as the Stimulus Bill -- and supporting the bailout initiated under former President George W. Bush.
"And if there's one thing that has unified Democrats and Republicans, it's that we all hated the bank bailout. I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal," Obama said. "And if we had allowed the meltdown of the financial system, unemployment might be double what it is today."
After two years of recession, the economy is growing again and retirement funds have begun to regain some of their value, Obama said. Businesses are beginning to invest again, and slowly some are starting to hire again.
Americans can go to work today "building the infrastructure of tomorrow," Obama said. "There's no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products."
He said more Americans should work building clean energy facilities and rebates should be given to homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient.
"And to encourage these and other businesses to stay within our borders, it's time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs in the United States of America," Obama said.
Geithner defends AIG bailout deal
WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended his role in the TARP bailout program and the bailout itself during questioning by a House panel Wednesday.
Geithner, 48, told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee the $700 billion Temporary Asset Relief Program was necessary to stop a meltdown of the financial system in 2008. He said the $182 billion injection of taxpayer cash into the faltering insurer American International Group Inc. was necessary to prevent the United States from plunging into a second Great Depression.
"The steps the government took to rescue AIG were motivated solely by what we believed to be in the best interests of the American people," Geithner said. "We acted because the consequences of AIG failing at that time, in those circumstances, would have been catastrophic for our economy and for American families and businesses."
Geithner said the government faced a "tragic choice" in dealing with the financial crisis.
"You can let it try to burn itself out and let the damage spread to all sorts of innocent victims, or you can act to prevent it, knowing that acting to prevent it will create the risks that in the future investors will expect the government to step in, in the future and save firms from the consequences of failure," he said.
"To stand back and let it burn is irresponsible. It's what happened in the Great Depression. It almost happened to this country."
Geithner -- who was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank when the AIG deal was made -- said he "withdrew from monetary policy decisions" involving AIG, which used an $85 billion bailout to pay off debts to large banks at full value.
"It stretches credulity for us to believe that you had no role in this," Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., told Geithner at one point during Wednesday's hearing. "You were the head of the Fed and didn't know anything about it? It just doesn't make sense to me."
The New York Fed's attorney, Thomas Baxter, explained the Fed advised AIG to remove narrative descriptions of the deal from a regulatory filing because the numbers in the report were more accurate and told the same story.
Death toll in China blizzards reaches 20
BEIJING, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Twenty people have died in northwestern China as a result of freezing temperatures and the heaviest snowfall in 60 years, officials said.
Blizzards and avalanches hit the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region affecting 1.5 million people, Xinhua reported Wednesday.
Thousands have been injured, and more than 30,000 homes have been damaged, the regional department of civil affairs announced.
About 160,000 people have been evacuated in three prefectures, and direct economic loss from the storms is estimated at around $94 million, the department said.
China's Premier Wen Biabao, visiting the affected areas on the weekend, said the government would take measures to offer relief, including providing subsidies and discount loans.
The regional government has already allocated $9.59 million and provided 4,716 tons of grain, 38,649 tons of coal and 40,000 winter coats and quilts, Xinhua reported.
Investigator says Peterson uncooperative
JOLIET, Ill., Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Drew Peterson was not cooperative with police after the disappearance of his fourth wife, an Illinois State Police special agent testified Wednesday.
Special Agent Patrick Callaghan -- testifying at a pretrial hearing to determine what hearsay evidence will be allowed in Peterson's trial on charges he allegedly killed his third wife, Kathleen Savio -- said Peterson only would allow one investigator into his suburban Chicago home the day his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, was reported missing, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Drew Peterson, a former Bolingbrook, Ill., police officer, accompanied the investigator inside the house and limited the officer's access to drawers and his two vehicles, Callaghan testified.
In earlier testimony Wednesday, a doctor who treated Savio said he knew of no medical reason that would have caused the woman to slip and fall in a bathtub. Savio's 2004 death, ruled an accident at the time, was reclassified as a homicide after Stacy Peterson disappeared in 2007.
