Obama Takes Jobs Pitch to Buffalo

Updated at 4:25 p.m. ET

As American workers continue to grumble over the nation's stubbornly high unemployment rate, President Obama today visited a manufacturing plant in Buffalo, New York to promote his plan to increase loans for small businesses and create more jobs.

"Government can't create jobs, but it can create the conditions for small businesses to grow and hire more workers," Mr. Obama said at Industrial Support Inc. "It can knock down the barriers that prevent small businesses from getting loans and investing in the future."

The nation's unemployment rate last month hovered at close to 10 percent, even though 290,000 new jobs were created.

"We can say beyond a shadow of a doubt we are headed in the right direction," Mr. Obama said today. "Despite all the naysayers who predicted failure a year ago, our economy's growing again."

The president stressed that most of last month's job creation was in the private sector and that the "single most important thing" the government can do is ensure small businesses can acquire loans to hire more people. Last month the president sent a proposal to Congress to create a $30 billion small business lending fund.

The president said he hopes the legislation "doesn't fall victim to the same partisanship we've seen over the last year." He blasted Republicans for sitting "on the sidelines as the [economic] crisis unfolded."

While the president insists his policies, such as the stimulus package, are aimed at creating jobs, many workers remain unconvinced.

Awaiting Mr. Obama in Buffalo today was a billboard erected by an out-of-work former small business owner. It reads, "Dear Mr. President, I need a freakin job. Period." The billboard directs people to the INAFJ Project, which aims to make job creation the government's top priority and blasts government deficits, bank bailouts, policies that send jobs overseas and the seeming disinterest from Washington.

With 35,000 of its members out of work, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers is also pressing Washington to treat the issue of job creation more urgently. The union has created a project called U Cubed to organize and mobilize the unemployed. It released a "get out the vote" ad in Pennsylvania highlighting the job losses there.

"Now we have the power to turn the screws -- with our votes," a narrator says.

Left-wing blogs like DailyKos and FireDogLake are also pressing for more action.

Mr. Obama acknowledged today that "when you're in Washington, sometimes it's just hard to hear anything else except the clamor of politics. That clamor can drown out the voices of the American people."

While arguing that his policies are working, the president said there is more to be done.

"It's not a real recovery until people feel it in their own lives," he said. "Until Americans who want work can find it."

Meanwhile, Democrats in the House today withdrew a bill they called their latest "jobs" bill -- a proposal to increase investments in science, research and training programs -- after Republicans managed to pass an amendment that gutted the legislation, the Hill reports. The GOP was able to pass their amendment by adding an anti-pornography provision to it -- a number of Democrats voted for the package of amendments for fear they would otherwise be portrayed as pro-pornography.