US President Barack Obama pushed Congress on Saturday to move ahead with financial regulatory reform, saying his job is not only to create jobs and help the country recover but also to prevent another economic meltdown. "There's been a lot of discussion about technical aspects of the bill, and a lot of heated -- and frankly, sometimes misleading -- rhetoric coming from opponents of reform," President Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. "All of this has helped obscure what reform would actually mean for you, the American people." President Obama cited consumer protection against predatory lending practices as chief among the reforms in the bill, which he also advocated during a trip this week to Buffalo, N.Y. There, he said, he met small business owners who were among the "worst victims of the excessive risk-taking on Wall Street that led to this crisis." "Their credit dried up. They had to let people go. Some even shut their doors altogether. And unless we put in place real safeguards, we could see it happen all over again," he said. President Obama has been balancing regulatory reform with other priorities -- the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the nomination of a Supreme Court justice -- but the issue may take a higher priority as it moves toward a vote. "The reform bill being debated in the Senate will not solve every problem in our financial system -- no bill could. But what this strong bill will do is important, and I urge the Senate to pass it as soon as possible, so we can secure America's economic future in the 21st century," President Obama said.
