95% working families to get tax cut: Obama

The US President Barack Obama on Saturday said that as many as 95 per cent of the working families would get tax cuts and beginning April an average American family would start receiving an additional $65 each month.

"I am pleased to announce that this morning, the Treasury Department began directing employers to reduce the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks — meaning that by April 1, a typical family will begin taking home at least $65 more every month," Obama said in his weekly radio address.

"Never before in our history has a tax cut taken effect faster or gone to so many hardworking Americans," he said. This has been made possible, he said, because of the $789-billion economic stimulus bill he signed early this week in Denver after the Congress passed the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Calling it the first step on the road to economic recovery, Obama said: "We cannot fail to complete the journey. That will require stemming the spread of foreclosures and falling home values, and doing all we can to help responsible homeowners stay in their homes, which is exactly what the housing plan I announced last week will help us do."

The President said this will require stabilising and repairing the banking system, and getting credit flowing again to families and businesses. "It will require reforming the broken regulatory system that made this crisis possible and recognising that it is only by setting and enforcing 21st century rules of the road that we can build a thriving economy," he said.

Obama said on Monday he had convened a fiscal summit of independent experts and unions, advocacy groups and members of Congress to discuss how the trillion-dollar deficit, which he has inherited from the previous administration, can be cut.

"On Tuesday, I will speak to the nation about our urgent national priorities, and on Thursday, I will release a budget that is sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don't, and restoring fiscal discipline," he said.

"Because of what we did together, there will now be shovels in the ground, cranes in the air, and workers rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, and repairing our faulty levees and dams," he said.

"Because of what we did, companies — large and small — that produce renewable energy can now apply for loan guarantees and tax credits and find ways to grow, instead of laying people off; and families can lower their energy bills by weatherising their homes," he added.