US President Barack Obama has called for new stimulus measures to boost the struggling economy. The effort is likely to further complicate talks to bring the country's debt under control.

Barack Obama, US President, said, Obama said Congress should approve loans to encourage construction spending and extend tax breaks that benefit middle-income families to bring down the unemployment rate, currently at 9 percent. He said Congress could also advance free trade pacts with South Korea, Panama and Colombia. Those measures would likely add hundreds of billions of dollars to budget deficits at a time when the White House and lawmakers are trying to narrow them by more than one trillion. Obama and congressional Republicans are deadlocked over whether tax increases should be part of a spending-cut deal that would give lawmakers political cover to extend the government's borrowing authority.