Obama pushes Congress for small business money

Here’s a report from the Associated Press on Obama’s talk today about the small business aid package.

President Barack Obama exhorted Congress on Monday to make passing a long-languishing small business aid package its first order of business when it returns next month from its summer break.

“I ask Senate Republicans to drop the blockade,” Obama said in the Rose Garden after meeting with his economic advisers.

Acknowledging that the economy still remains extremely fragile, the president said he’d also have other specific ideas in the days ahead.

He mentioned extending Bush tax cuts due to expire this year for households making under $250,000 a year, upping the nation’s investment in clean energy, rebuilding more roads and highways and tax cuts designed to keep jobs in the U.S.

“My economic team is hard at work identifying additional measures that could make a difference in both promoting growth and hiring in the short term and increasing our economy’s competitiveness in the long term,” he said.