Obama tells Congress to pass $447 billion jobs plan

US President Barack Obama challenged Republicans to halt a political circus and immediately pass a bigger than expected $447 billion jobs plan to jolt the stalled economy.These are difficult years for our country. But we are Americans. We are tougher than the times that we live in, and we are bigger than our politics have been, Obama said, pleading for unity in a speech to a polarized Congress.Lets meet the moment, he said, seeking to restore public trust in his leadership with a plan that mixes tax cuts and investments and takes aim at 9.1 percent unemployment which is threatening his 2012 reelection bid.The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy, said Obama in front of a large US flag in the well of the House of Representatives.The plans $447 billion price tag contains $175 billion to cut employee payroll taxes in half, to 3.1 percent in 2012.The taxes fund the Social Security retirement and Medicare health plan for senior citizens, and officials said the cuts were a way to get money directly into the pockets of those who need it most and those most likely to spend it.Obama also proposed cutting the payroll tax in half for 98 percent of businesses on payroll up to $5 million in a bid to induce hiring of new workers.Firms can get a complete payroll tax holiday if they add workers or increase the wages of current employees up to $50 million in payroll.One administration official said that using payroll taxes to spur demand was an elegant way to ensure that people have more money in your check, more money in your pocket.Obama also proposed a $50 billion program to invest in highways, railroad and airport modernizations, which officials said would put hundreds of thousands of construction workers back to work.He called on Congress to provide $10 billion to capitalize a national infrastructure bank to leverage private and public capital to invest in a broad range of projects.He also proposed a $35 billion program to prevent layoffs of 280,000 teachers and to keep police officers and firefighters on the job, in a bid to stem local and state government layoffs that are inflating unemployment figures.Other projects included: A $30 billion project to modernize 35,000 public schools. A returning heroes tax credit to spur hiring of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and a $49 billion plan to reform an extend insurance payments for the long-term unemployed.Obama will ask a congressional supercommittee which met for the first time Thursday and is mandated to cut spending by $1.5 trillion to seek further budget cuts to offset the new spending.