Obama to unveil measures to free up credit

President Barack Obama said Saturday his administration will announce new measures soon to free up credit for businesses and individual borrowers, in the latest bid to revive a rapidly deteriorating US economy.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, the US leader said the soon-to-be-announced credit measures would be unveiled by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
"Just as we jumpstart job creation, we must also ensure that markets are stable, credit is flowing, and families can stay in their homes."
He added: "We'll help lower mortgage costs and extend loans to small businesses so they can create jobs.
"We will insist on unprecedented transparency, rigorous oversight, and clear accountability -- so taxpayers know how their money is being spent and whether it is achieving results," he said.
The president also called on the US Senate to quickly approve his stimulus plan, which aims to tackle the "unprecedented economic turmoil," after the House of Representatives this week approved an 819-billion-dollar (640-billion-euro) version of the measure.
The Senate is poised to debate the measure next week, after it passed in the House, but garnered no Republican support.
As the recovery plan now moves to Congress' upper chamber, Obama vowed to "continue working with both parties so that the strongest possible bill gets to my desk."
"With the stakes so high we simply cannot afford the same old gridlock and partisan posturing in Washington. It's time to move in a new direction," he said.
He added that the foundering US economy "is likely to get worse before it gets better."
Obama's remarks came a day after the release of figures showing that the US economy shrank by nearly four percent in the last quarter of 2008, the sharpest decline in more than a quarter-century.