President Obama has tapped two leading CEOs for ideas as he prepares to deliver a major speech next month on job creation and deficit reduction.
Obama took a break from his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday for a conference call with General Electric CEO and Chairman Jeffrey Immelt and American Express CEO and Chairman Kenneth Chenault. Both executives are members of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competiveness.
“They’re looking for a way to increase the number of engineers that graduate from American universities of higher learning,” said White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest. “The second thing is that they also spoke with the president about some different initiatives that would bring more construction workers back to work by putting them to work retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient.”
Obama is expected to deliver his economic address sometime after Labor Day. The White House says the president will call on lawmakers to look for cuts in the deficit beyond the $1.5 trillion that were agreed upon as part of this month’s deal to raise the debt ceiling. Obama will also call on Congress to pass some yet to be identified job-building measures.
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is scheduled to deliver his own jobs-creation plan on September 6 in Nevada.
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