The US president has attempted to reassert political primacy over the markets by denouncing Standard & Poor's downgrading of US debt.
Barack Obama said the move did not alter the fact that the American economy was the richest and most dynamic in the world. He insisted politicians had the answers, if only they worked together.
"Markets will rise and fall. But this is United States of America, no matter what some agencies may say. We've always been and always will be a triple A country. The fact is that we didn't need a rating agency to tell us that we need a balanced long term approach to deficit reduction. We don't need a rating agency to tell us that the gridlock in Washington over the last several months has not been constructive, to say the least. Our problems are imminently solvable and we know what we have to do to solve them," he said in a nationwide address.
Obama also promised a raft of measures to boost job creation, including a possible cut in payroll taxes to boost consumer spending. He is also awaiting a 12-member bipartisan supercommittee in Congress to issue proposals of its own, although its members have yet to be named, and it will concentrate on deficit reduction.
Source: EURONEWS
