This afternoon, President Obama visited Johnson Controls, a lithium-ion battery manufacturing company that capitalized on Recovery Act grants, to talk about his administration’s efforts to invest in innovation and create jobs. But just like so many Americans, the President is frustrated by the political posturing and gridlock in Washington – and today, he called on Congress to “put country ahead of party” and get to work.

Yes, the United States needs to reduce our debt and deficit, and live within our means. But the American economy needs a jump start, and there are measures Congress can take right now to accelerate the pace of growth.

Here are a few of the measures President Obama outlined that Congress can pass immediately to help boost job creation:

• Extend the payroll tax cut first enacted in December 2010 to keep more money in the hands of working and middle-class families;
• Pass a construction bill so companies can hire tens of thousands of people right now;
• Pass the trade agreements that have been reached with other countries, but have yet to be enacted because they’re stuck in Congress; and,
• Reform the patent system so American entrepreneurs can turn their ideas into businesses.

The President is going to propose additional measures over the coming weeks that will speed up our recovery, but he called on Congress to join his efforts to help people find work. As he said, “I’m going to keep at it until every single American who wants a job can find one.”

Click here to watch the President’s complete remarks at Johnson Controls.

There's not a single policy alone that will repair our country and replenish the jobs lost during the worst of the recession. But the best way to create jobs is to draw on every economic instrument and lever to accelerate the pace of growth. And that’s exactly what President Obama is doing.

Bringing together economic experts, business leaders, innovators, workers, and educators, the President’s approach reflects his goal of making our county even stronger, more advanced, and more competitive. Over the past few weeks, he has announced several exciting initiatives to help bring us closer to that vision.

Last Friday, the President visited Pittsburgh and the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University to announce a new program – the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership – that brings together industry, universities, and the federal government to kick-start investment in nascent technologies such as new-age robotics and national security industries -- and improve energy efficiency in manufacturing.

With a “renaissance of American manufacturing” in mind, programs like this will help create jobs and make our country more globally competitive. As the President said at Carnegie Mellon:

Throughout our history, our greatest breakthroughs have often come from partnerships just like this one. American innovation has always been sparked by individual scientists and entrepreneurs, often at universities like Carnegie Mellon or Georgia Tech or Berkeley or Stanford. But a lot of companies don’t invest in early ideas because it won’t pay off right away. And that’s where government can step in. That’s how we ended up with some of the world-changing innovations that fueled our growth and prosperity and created countless jobs -- the mobile phone, the Internet, GPS, more than 150 drugs and vaccines over the last 40 years was all because we were able to, in strategic ways, bring people together and make some critical investments.

The government plays a critical role as a steward of the economy, and programs like the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership help clear a path for progress. But private investment is also an indispensable driver of growth.

That's why the Obama administration has also launched another program called SelectUSA to incentivize added foreign investment in America.

Additionally, the administration just released a report on the benefits of foreign-based companies investing in our country, and also convened a forum on impact investing for investors seeking both economic and social returns. Click here to learn more about impact investing.

Each of these initiatives represents a component of the President’s broader effort to use every idea and resource available as a means of creating jobs and strengthening our economy. As he’s said before, President Obama is not satisfied with the pace of recovery – these measures reflect his commitment to accelerating our country’s growth.

There's not a single policy that will repair our country and replenish the jobs lost during the worst of the recession. But the best way to create jobs is to draw on every economic instrument and lever to accelerate the pace of growth. And that’s exactly what President Obama is doing.

Bringing together economic experts, business leaders, innovators, workers, and educators, the President’s approach reflects his goal of making our county even stronger, more advanced, and more competitive. Over the past few weeks, he has announced several exciting initiatives to help bring us closer to that vision.

Last Friday, the President visited Pittsburgh and the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University to announce a new program – the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership – that brings together industry, universities, and the federal government to kick-start investment in nascent technologies such as new-age robotics and national security industries -- and improve energy efficiency in manufacturing.

With a “renaissance of American manufacturing” in mind, programs like this will help create jobs and make our country more globally competitive. As the President said at Carnegie Mellon:

Throughout our history, our greatest breakthroughs have often come from partnerships just like this one. American innovation has always been sparked by individual scientists and entrepreneurs, often at universities like Carnegie Mellon or Georgia Tech or Berkeley or Stanford. But a lot of companies don’t invest in early ideas because it won’t pay off right away. And that’s where government can step in. That’s how we ended up with some of the world-changing innovations that fueled our growth and prosperity and created countless jobs -- the mobile phone, the Internet, GPS, more than 150 drugs and vaccines over the last 40 years was all because we were able to, in strategic ways, bring people together and make some critical investments.

The government plays a critical role as a steward of the economy, and programs like the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership help clear a path for progress. But private investment is also an indispensable driver of growth.

That's why the Obama administration has also launched another program called SelectUSA to incentivize added foreign investment in America.

Additionally, the administration just released a report on the benefits of foreign-based companies investing in our country, and also convened a forum on impact investing for investors seeking both economic and social returns. Click here to learn more about impact investing.

Each of these initiatives represents a component of the President’s broader effort to use every idea and resource available as a means of creating jobs and strengthening our economy. As he’s said before, President Obama is not satisfied with the pace of recovery – these measures reflect his commitment to accelerating our country’s growth.

President Obama has been holding town hall conversations this week to discuss the future of our country. It has been clear from both the President’s remarks and the questions asked that Americans are following the current debate on our country’s budget and fiscal situation and are concerned about the need for continued economic progress.

As yesterday’s town hall at Facebook's headquarters in San Francisco kicked off, President Obama pointed out the significance of using technology to connect with young people and the importance of being well informed: 

And historically, part of what makes for a healthy democracy, what is good politics, is when you’ve got citizens who are informed, who are engaged. And what Facebook allows us to do is make sure this isn’t just a one-way conversation; makes sure that not only am I speaking to you but you're also speaking back and we're in a conversation, were in a dialogue. So I love doing town hall meetings. This format and this company I think is an ideal means for us to be able to carry on this conversation.

The President fielded a question from Lauren from Detroit about job creation and America’s economic recovery, the need to increase federal investments in targeted areas, and the shift to a debate about spending cuts and the deficit. Here’s the President’s response:

Well, you’re exactly right that when I first came into office our number-one job was preventing us from getting into another Great Depression. And that was what the Recovery Act was all about. So we helped states make sure that they could minimize some of the layoffs and some of the difficult budget choices that they faced.  We made sure that we had infrastructure spending all around the country. And, in fact, we made the biggest investment in infrastructure since Dwight Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System.

We made the largest investment in history in clean energy research, and it’s really paying off. For example, when I came into office, we had about 2 percent of the advanced battery manufacturing here in America. And as everybody here knows, what’s really holding us back from my goal of a million electric vehicles on the road is that battery technology is still tough. It’s clunky; it’s heavy; it’s expensive. And if we can make significant improvements in battery technology then I think the opportunities for electric vehicles, alternative vehicles that are much cheaper -- our opportunities are limitless.

The President noted that the economy is now growing again, though still more can be done. Because the recession occurred while our country was already carrying a debt, however, that burden could end up slowing our recovery without a serious approach to balance our checkbook:

Anybody every driven a clutch car? I mean, you got to sort of tap and -- well, that’s sort of what we faced in terms of the economy, right? We got to hit the accelerator, but we’ve got to also make sure that we don’t gun it; we can’t let the car slip backwards. And so what we’re trying to do then is put together a debt and deficit plan that doesn’t slash spending so drastically that we can’t still make investments in education, that we can’t still make investments in infrastructure -- all of which would help the economy grow.

In December, we passed a targeted tax cut for business investment, as well as the payroll tax that has a stimulus effect that helps to grow the economy. We can do those things and still grow the economy while having a plan in place to reduce the deficit, first by 2015, and then over the long term. So I think we can do both, but it does require the balanced approach that I was talking about.

If all we’re doing is spending cuts and we’re not discriminating about it, if we’re using a machete instead of a scalpel and we’re cutting out things that create jobs, then the deficit could actually get worse because we could slip back into another recession.

You can click here to read the full transcript from yesterday’s Facebook town hall.