WASHINGTON, Dec 15: President George W. Bush ratcheted up pressure on the US Senate on Saturday to pass a stimulus package, saying failure to do so could cost 300,000 jobs and cut US economic growth by half a percentage point.

In his weekly radio address, Bush faulted the Senate and its Democratic leader, Sen. Tom Daschle, for failing to pass a stimulus bill to revive a US economy that slid into recession in March and suffered even more from the Sept. 11, attacks.

More than two months, and more than 700,000 lost jobs ago, I proposed an economic security package to help workers who have been laid off, and to take action to create jobs and promote long-term economic growth, Bush said.

Noting the House of Representatives has passed a bill much like his proposal, Bush said: The Senate has failed to act. And while the Senate has failed to do its work, more and more Americans have been thrown out of work.

Bush and Daschle are at loggerheads over the package, with key differences over Republican demands to reduce corporate taxes and to speed up individual tax rate cuts and Democratic demands to expand benefits for the unemployed and help laid-off workers pay for health insurance.

Negotiators were expected to work throughout the weekend in an effort to strike a deal before Congress breaks next weekend for its Christmas holiday and Bush’s radio address appeared designed to put pressure on them to come to an agreement.

In a “white paper” released with the radio address, the White House Council of Economic Advisers said failure to pass a stimulus package like Bush’s could lower US growth by about 0.5 percentage point between the fourth quarters of 2001 and 2002 and could cost the US economy 300,000 jobs.

In an effort to break the logjam in the Senate, Bush offered on Tuesday to scale back the size of his proposed corporate and individual tax cuts and increase federal assistance for the unemployed.

Bush offered to reduce, rather than repeal, the corporate alternative minimum tax and to accelerate the reduction of the 27 per cent federal income tax bracket to 25 per cent, excluding faster cuts for higher-income taxpayers.—Reuters