President Barack Obama urged the U.S. Congress on Friday to pass a $5 billion expansion of tax credits for clean energy manufacturing that he said would generate tens of thousands of new jobs.
With anxiety over high unemployment threatening Obama's Democrats in November congressional elections, he used a campaign swing for key political candidates to defend his economic agenda and promote job-boosting measures.
Obama, accused by Republicans and some business leaders of a government overreach, also sought to strike a business-friendly tone and insisted his policies were aimed at unleashing the private sector as a catalyst for job growth.
"The private sector -- not government -- is, was, and always will be the source of America's economic success," he told a university audience in Nevada, a state struggling to overcome effects of a deep national recession.
While campaigning for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is in a tough ...