Jobs, healthcare reforms remain top priority for Obama

The unfinished agenda of reversing the slide in the job market and pending healthcare reforms were the highlights of US President Barack Obama's maiden State of the Union Address. He vowed to press ahead with his plan to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system and called on Congress to pass a package of tax cuts and spending to stimulate the world's largest economy and create millions of new jobs. "Jobs must be our No. 1 focus in 2010, and that is why I am calling for a new jobs bill tonight," Obama told lawmakers from the podium in the chamber of the House of Representatives. Obama appealed to US lawmakers to take another look at his administration's healthcare reform proposal, while acknowledging that the plan is in a bit of a limbo at the moment. He also touched upon the ballooning budget deficit, saying that the government must tackle it. The deficit will hit US$1.35 trillion in 2010, the Congressional Budget Office has predicted. Obama’s speech before a joint session of Congress was devoted mostly to economic concerns, particularly the loss of more than 7 million jobs since the start of the recession in December 2007. Many of the steps he outlined on Wednesday have also been proposed previously. Support for Obama has weakened since he took office and a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll has found that Americans think that he has focused too much attention on the now-stalled health-care overhaul and not enough on the economy.