国际英语新闻:Obama gov't touts tax cut victory, rebuilding America blueprint

In a campaign-style speech at a Boeing facility on Friday, Obama reiterated the administration's key message in his State of the Union delivered last month that manufacturing sector and exports were critical to U.S. job creation, and the world's largest economy should invest on key areas to secure long-term growth.

The passage of the bill of extending payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed was an "important short-term step to strengthen our economy," Obama told Boeing workers, adding that "America is a place where we can always do something to create new jobs, and new opportunities, and new manufacturing, and new security for the middle class."

"The payroll tax cut is just a start. If we want middle-class families to get ahead, we've got to deal with a set of economic challenges that existed even before this recession hit," stressed Obama, adding that the administration was poised to take new moves to create manufacturing jobs in the nation and fulfill the goal of doubling exports within five years.

In his State of the Union address in 2010, Obama announced the National Export Initiative with the goal of doubling U.S. exports in five years by 2014. White House figures revealed that U.S. exports in 2011 rose nearly 34 percent over the 2009 figure, exceeding 2.1 trillion dollars in total value.

In one of the administration's latest efforts to boost exports, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday announced that she would appoint the State Department's first chief economist, to promote U.S. competitiveness and job creation, at the first-ever Global Business Conference organized by the department.

"Supporting advanced manufacturing, increasing U.S. exports and attracting more investment to the United States" in a bid to create more jobs were also priorities of the U.S. Commerce Department, Commerce Secretary John Bryson said at the conference.

In this year's annual Economic Report of the President under the theme of "To recover, rebalance, and rebuild" sent to Congress on Friday, Obama's economic advisers stated that the federal government's major economic priorities include raising demand for U.S. goods and services in the short term to support ongoing recovery, improving the nation's fiscal sustainability in the medium and long run, as well as investing in education, innovation, research and infrastructure to build a stronger foundation for future development.