Obama urges Congress to act on jobs bills

President Obama, on a visit to Albany, N.Y., Tuesday urged both Republicans and Democrats to put politics aside and pass job-creating legislation. Obama spoke at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the State University of New York-Albany. Gov. Andrew Cuomo introduced him to an audience of about 400, mostly students and faculty members. "Now, I know this is an election year, but it's not an excuse for inaction. Six months is plenty of time for Democrats and Republicans to get together and do the right thing, taking steps that will spur additional job creation right now," Obama said. "Just saying no to ideas that we know will help our economy isn't an option. There's too much at stake." Obama's "to-do list" for Congress included providing additional mortgage relief for families facing foreclosure, providing job help for veterans, extending tax breaks for clean energy businesses, providing them for small businesses that create jobs and ending them for businesses that move jobs out of the country. Though the unemployment rate still hovers above 8 percent and many Americans have abandoned the workforce, the president said his administration has helped create millions of jobs. He also said the U.S. economy is adding manufacturing jobs for the first time in more than a decade.