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Still, his plans put Republicans on the spot, making it harder for them to say no to legislation they once embraced.

In a speech on Wednesday in Cleveland, Obama will ask Congress to let businesses quickly write off 100 percent of their spending on new plants and equipment through 2011.

Its part of a raft of new Obama proposals to spur job creation and help businesses — and to try to give his party a much-needed boost ahead of November elections that will determine which party controls the House and Senate.

Clearly frustrated by the halting economic recovery and mindful of polls showing Republicans poised to make big midterm gains, Obama had his economic advisers come up with a fresh set of proposals with job-creating potential.

Among them: a $50 billion program to rebuild roads, railways and airports and to create a new infrastructure bank to oversee long-term projects. Legislation containing multiple public works projects has usually been popular in Congress across party lines.

The administration has not spelled out exactly how it would pay for all the new proposals, but suggested it would offset tax cuts by closing various corporate loopholes and levying targeted tax hikes on big business, particularly on the oil and gas industry and on multinational corporations. Some of these tax proposals were included in the budget Obama submitted to Congress earlier this year but were never acted on by Congress.

Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, the senior Republican on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, called Obama’s business tax measures serious proposals worthy of consideration. But he said that “raising taxes to cut taxes is at best a zero sum game.”

The proposed tax break for research and development has been around in one form or another since 1981 and in the past has drawn bipartisan support. However, Congress previously extended it just for short periods of time, usually just for one or two years, with frequent lapses that make it hard for businesses to plan. The credit most recently lapsed in 2009.

Obama has long advocated making the credit permanent.

His proposal to let companies quickly write off 100 percent of their investments in new plants and equipment is similar to proposals advanced several times by President George W. Bush — with considerable GOP support at the time.

The idea is to give companies an incentive to spend and invest now, rather than later. The administration claims the change would put nearly $200 billion in the hands of businesses over the next two years.

Under the current law, a company gets to deduct 50 percent of the costs upfront, and the remainder over three to 20 years, depending on the nature of the investment.

“This measure would provide tax incentives for businesses to invest in the United States when our economy needs it most,” says a White House fact sheet.

A senior administration official said the expensing provision would potentially benefit 1.5 million corporations and several million individuals. The tax break would be retroactive to this Wednesday.

Obama’s expensing and R&D tax credit proposals would generally help large businesses the most. A separate bill is before the Senate to give special tax breaks and loan incentives to small businesses. Obama has said that legislation should be Congress’ first order of business when it returns next week from its summer recess.

Chris Edwards, director of tax policy for the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, said he favors both a permanent research tax credit and Obama’s proposal for 100 percent expensing, calling both “very positive” steps and a sign that the administration is getting seriously worried about the economy.

Still, he added, “the administration would nullify the benefits if they are matched by various tax proposals for businesses.”

Thomas Mann, a political scientist at the Brookings Institution, said Obama’s three proposals — infrastructure spending, a permanent R&D credit and upfront 100 percent business write-offs — “constitute a re-entry into the make-the-economy-grow argument.”

“All of them had support among conservatives and right-of-center economists for many years. That makes it more awkward for the Republicans just to say no,” Mann said. But that isn’t stopping them, he added.

The Obama proposals would require congressional approval, which is highly uncertain given Washington’s partisan atmosphere and the fast-approaching midterms.

“We understand what season we’ve entered in Washington,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. Still, he said, even if Congress doesn’t take up Obama’s new proposals before the elections, “the president and the economic team still believe that these represent some very important ideas.”

The acceleration of the business write-off for plants and equipment would have a net long-term cost of $30 billion, far less than the amount the legislation would put in the hands of businesses, the White House contends. That’s because if companies take their write-offs upfront, they can’t depreciate the costs over a longer period for future tax breaks — as they do now.

Republican leaders greeted Obama’s most recent proposals cautiously, given past GOP support for various components.

“The White House is missing the big picture,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. “These aren’t necessarily bad proposals. …” But he said they don’t address the larger problems of “excessive government spending” and Democratic tax policies, including the impending expiration of Bush-era tax cuts.

Obama and Democratic congressional leaders want to renew the Bush tax cuts for households earning under $250,000 a year. Republicans want to extend all of them, saying a recession is no time to raise taxes.

Obama’s recently departed budget director, Peter Orszag, suggested in an op-ed article in Tuesday’s New York Times that policymakers seem locked “into a budget scenario out of which there are few politically plausible routes of escape.” As a compromise, he suggested extending the Bush tax cuts until 2013 “and then end them altogether.”

Gibbs said he had never heard Orszag make such an argument in internal White House deliberations and that the president did not agree with him on such a “compromise.”

Associated Press writers Julie Pace and Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.

Steven Slater, dressed in a trim blue suit, appeared in a Queens courtroom for a brief hearing on charges of criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and trespassing after last month’s meltdown aboard a JetBlue Airways Corp. flight from Pittsburgh that had just landed at Kennedy International Airport.

He was working Aug. 9 when, he said, an argument took place with a rude passenger. After landing at JFK, he went on the public address system, swore at a passenger who he claimed had treated him rudely, grabbed a beer and exited via an emergency chute, prosecutors said.

Attorneys on both sides said a deal was being discussed. Slater will be evaluated and may qualify for an alternative sentencing program, which means he could face community service and counseling instead of jail.

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said Slater’s willingness to be evaluated shows he’s taking the charges more seriously than he had in the past. Slater had spoken out after the incident, as his public opinion swelled and hundreds of thousands of fans online cheered him for standing up to the inhospitable world of airline travel.

The district attorney, speaking to reporters after the hearing, said it would behoove the public to take the Aug. 9 incident more seriously, noting the slide cost $25,000 to repair and the plane had to be taken out of service afterward, causing passenger delays.

“It’s no laughing matter,” he said.

Slater’s attorney, Daniel J. Horwitz, said his client was taking the matter very seriously and said he had been under tremendous pressure because of his terminally ill mother, recently deceased father, and health problems of his own. (Slater is HIV positive.) He said he was hoping prosecutors would take into account Slater’s “long-standing and well-regarded reputation in the industry.”

Horwitz said he hopes they can come to an agreement that favorably resolves the case, but he wouldn’t specify what he was looking for. Brown said if Slater is admitted for alternative sentencing, he could undergo a treatment program lasting weeks, but he said it depended on the outcome of the evaluation and he’s not ruling out the possibilty of jail time yet.

Slater, his head held high, left the court without speaking to the swell of reporters surrounding him. His publicist and attorney said he’s in good spirits and has spent the past few weeks in California with his ailing mother.

Slater resigned from JetBlue last week after about three years there; JetBlue said only that he was no longer an employee. Slater has spent nearly 20 years in the airline industry, but it’s not clear what he’s going to do now.

“Right now we want to get past the criminal issues. Then we’ll worry about the future,” publicist Howard Bragman said. “Obviously he will be unemployed until all this is resolved.”

JetBlue suspended Slater after the incident. It told employees in a memo that press coverage was not taking into account how much harm can be caused by emergency slides, which are deployed with a potentially deadly amount of force.

BP was striking first with a detailed report about what it believes went wrong on the Deepwater Horizon on April 20. It comes just days after a key piece of evidence in the explosion was raised to the surface but has not yet been analyzed. It also comes as the blame game heats up in Washington and in the courtroom.

BP was unlikely to place too much onus on itself, given the hundreds of lawsuits and billions of dollars of liabilities it faces. In public hearings, the company has tried to shift some blame to rig owner Transocean Ltd. and cement contractor Halliburton. BP was leasing the rig from Transocean and owned the well that blew out a mile under the Gulf surface, spewing some 206 million gallons of oil into the water over three months.

BP’s report is far from the final word on possible causes of the explosion, as several divisions of the U.S. government, including the Justice Department, Coast Guard and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, are also investigating.

Also, a key piece of the puzzle — the blowout preventer that failed to stop the oil from leaking from the well off the Louisiana coast — was raised from the water on Saturday. As of Tuesday afternoon, it had not reached a NASA facility in New Orleans where government investigators planned to analyze it, so those conclusions will not be part of BP’s report.

Investigators know the explosion was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before igniting.

But they don’t know exactly how or why the gas escaped. And they don’t know why the blowout preventer didn’t seal the well pipe at the sea bottom after the eruption, as it was supposed to.

The details of BP’s internal report have been closely guarded — and only a short list of people saw it ahead of its release. Mark Bly, BP’s group head of safety and operations, compiled the report and said in May that there was a gas plume before the explosion.

“This was a pretty large plume of gas … I think it was a large enough where there was a high likelihood it would have ignited,” he said.

There were other signs of problems, including an unexpected loss of fluid from a pipe known as a riser five hours before the explosion that could have indicated a leak in the blowout preventer.

Witness statements show that rig workers talked just minutes before the blowout about pressure problems in the well.

At first, nobody seemed too worried, workers have said. Then panic set in.

Workers called their bosses to report that the well was “coming in” and that they were “getting mud back.” The drilling supervisor, Jason Anderson, tried to shut down the well.

It didn’t work. At least two explosions turned the rig into an inferno.

Members of Congress, industry experts and workers who survived the rig explosion have accused BP’s engineers of cutting corners to save time and money on a project that was 43 days and more than $20 million behind schedule at the time of the blast.

Stewart Parnell, former president of the now-bankrupt Peanut Corp. of America, is working as a consultant to peanut companies as the federal government’s criminal investigation against him has languished for more than 18 months, The Associated Press has learned.

Parnell, who invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying before Congress in February 2009, once directed employees to “turn them loose” after samples of peanuts had tested positive for salmonella and then were cleared in a second test, according to e-mails uncovered at the time by congressional investigators.

In an interview with the AP, Parnell expressed exasperation and said he wants the pending criminal investigation resolved — one way or another.

“They just say we’re still investigating,” Parnell said. “I feel like I wish they’d come on and do what they’re going to do. I’d like to get this behind me.”

Parnell also said he has been directed by his lawyers not to discuss his case with family members of the nine people who died in the salmonella outbreak blamed on his processed peanuts.

“My lawyers will not let me say anything or I’d be in front of every one of them personally,” Parnell said.

Family members of some of the victims who died say they are eager to see Parnell behind bars.

“My God, when are we going to hold anyone responsible?” said Jeff Almer, whose mother, Shirley Almer, was the first known death from the outbreak in Minnesota. “So far to this day, nothing’s happened to this man. I think every person in America who was affected by this, every family who lost someone, deserves to hear the truth from this guy.”

A federal judge in Virginia earlier this month approved a $12 million insurance settlement for Almer’s family and more than 100 other salmonella victims.

Randy Napier’s mother died in Ohio after eating peanut butter linked to Parnell’s peanuts.

“He’s still walking the streets almost two years later, whereas my mother is lying 6 feet under,” Napier said. “It’s just not fair. If the (Food and Drug Administration) does not go after Stewart Parnell, the message they are sending to the industry is don’t worry about it, ship it. He should not be anywhere near the food industry.”

There is nothing illegal about Parnell’s return to the food industry since the FDA’s criminal investigation has yet to bring any charges against him or his associates. The FDA referred questions about the case to the Justice Department, which declined to comment.

FDA inspectors found remarkably bad conditions inside Parnell’s processing plant in Blakely, Ga., linked to the salmonella outbreak, including mold and roaches.

Parnell’s lawyer, William Gust, says Parnell’s consulting began when Lynchburg, Va.-based Peanut Corp. of America sold its peanut-making equipment after filing bankruptcy. Investors who bought the equipment asked for Parnell’s advice about where to resell it, and he has advised peanut companies too, brokering equipment sales. One company he has consulted for is Citation Snack Processors in Greensboro, N.C.

Parnell said he isn’t paid for the consulting, though his lawyer said he is “trying to earn a living” with the work.

“He has been in the business a long time, a lot of people know him, not withstanding the salmonella issue,” Gust said. “This salmonella issue has basically destroyed his whole family.”

It’s unclear why the government probe has taken so long or whether it is still in the hands of the FDA or the Justice Department, which would prosecute the case. The FDA traditionally conducts investigations and then hands such cases over to Justice Department prosecutors.

Parnell’s legal limbo comes amid a congressional debate over a bill that would give the FDA more power and more money to inspect food manufacturers, trace illnesses back to their source and take action against unscrupulous food manufacturers. The House passed the bill last year, but the legislation has stalled in the Senate and few measures are expected to be signed into law before the November elections.

Benchmark oil for October delivery was down 37 cents at $73.72 a barrel at midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 51 cents to settle at $74.09 on Tuesday.

Most major Asian stock markets fell Wednesday and the Dow Jones industrial average stumbled 1 percent Tuesday after reports that EU stress tests of 91 banks in July understated some lenders’ holdings of potentially risky debt. Germany’s top 10 banks will have to raise as much as $135 billion to meet new capital requirements, reports said.

Oil traders often look to equities as a barometer of overall investor sentiment.

Some analysts are concerned that slowing U.S. economic growth in the second half could undermine crude demand. Bank of America Merrill Lynch expects crude to average $78 a barrel in the second half and $85 next year.

“Following robust increases in oil demand over the past 12 months on a stimulus-driven rebound, we now see some downside risk as slower growth sets in and developed countries’ oil inventories remain high,” B of A said in a report.

In other Nymex trading in October contracts, heating oil fell 1.0 cent to $2.0643 a gallon and gasoline dropped 1.04 cents to $1.9225 a gallon. Natural gas for October delivery gained 5.2 cents to $3.904 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent crude was down 44 cents at $77.30 on the ICE Futures exchange.

The 8.8 percent jump in July from June was the second straight month of increase as solid overseas demand bolstered corporate sentiment, according to government figures released Wednesday.

The figure surpassed Kyodo news agency’s average market forecast for a 1.5 percent month-on-month rise and is the biggest jump since December. Orders rose 1.6 percent in June after tumbling 9.1 percent in May.

The figures indicate progress in the country’s economic recovery, said Keisuke Tsumura, the Cabinet’s parliamentary secretary.

But “if the impact of the yen’s rise becomes more serious, we cannot rule out the possibility that machinery orders and capital spending will be negatively affected,” he said, according to Kyodo.

Core private sector machinery orders received by 280 manufacturers totaled 766.3 billion yen ($9.1 billion) for July, the Cabinet Office said in a monthly report. Core orders do not include figures considered volatile, such as those for ships and electric utilities.

The data showed orders from manufacturers climbed 10.1 percent, with substantial gains in the chemical and electronics equipment sectors. Non-manufacturers’ orders rose 8.1 percent.

In the three month period to September, the Cabinet Office predicts orders will rise 0.8 percent.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety gave its top marks to 21 of 72 booster seats it evaluated for properly restraining children, or about 30 percent, according to results released Wednesday. Last year, the Institute only handed out its “best bet” citation to nine of the 60 seats it reviewed, or 15 percent.

Booster seats are used by children between the ages of 4 and 8 and elevate kids so seat belts fit them better. Seat belts are meant to be routed across a child’s upper thigh and cross over the middle of the shoulder to provide protection in a crash.

A 2009 study by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found that children ages 4 to 8 who ride in booster seats in the back seat are 45 percent less likely to sustain injuries in crashes than children wearing only seat belts. The government recommends booster seats for children over 40 pounds until they are 8 years old or 4 feet, 9 inches tall.

The Virginia-based Institute focuses on how well the seat belt fits on an average booster-age kid in most vehicles. It doesn’t conduct vehicle crash tests to evaluate booster seats because the seats don’t restrain children in a crash, seat belts do.

Harmony Juvenile Products had five “best bet” booster seats, more than any other manufacturer. Dorel Juvenile Group had five seats that rated either “best bet” or “good bet,” the second-highest designation.

Booster seats built by Britax, Clek, Combi, Dorel, Evenflo and Recaro had “best bet” booster seats for a second straight year. Seats by Chicco, Cybex, Graco, Harmony and The First Years joined the “best bet” ranks in 2010.

In addition to the 21 seats that received the top rating, seven seats received the Institute’s second-highest rating of “good bet” and 36 were in the middle category because they didn’t consistently fit belts well on most children in most vehicles.

The Institute said consumers shouldn’t assume that boosters in the “in-between” group will fit children in every vehicle. Parents should try them out to see if the lap and shoulder belts fit their kids properly and keep looking until they find a good match.

The Institute did not recommend: Eddie Bauer Deluxe, Eddie Bauer Deluxe 3-in-1, Evenflo Express, Evenflo Generations 65, Evenflo Sightseer, Harmony Baby Armor, Safety 1st All-in-One, and Safety 1st Alpha Omega Elite.

Dorel Juvenile Group, which manufacturers the Eddie Bauer and Safety 1st seats, said in a statement that it evaluates and continues to evolve “current products to enhance their performance with new technologies and designs.”

Michael Noah, a senior vice president with Harmony Juvenile, said the company was pleased with the overall results and said the Baby Armor seats had performed well in testing conducted by third-party laboratories for the company. Evenflo did not immediately respond to the Institute tests.

Anne McCartt, the Institute’s vice president for research, said parents should be wary of lap belts that ride up on the tummy and shoulder belts that either fall off the shoulder or rub against a child’s neck.

Online:

IIHS booster seat ratings: http://www.iihs.org/

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index dropped 214.73 points, or 2.2 percent, to 9,011.27. China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.5 percent to 2,685.18 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 1.4 percent to 21,095.91. South Korea’s Kospi was down 0.5 percent at 1,779.22.

Investors took profits after markets did well last week and the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 107.24 points, or 1 percent, to 10,340.69 on Tuesday.

“That would be an excuse for Asian markets to take profits,” said Jackson Wong, investment manager for Tanrich Securities in Hong Kong. “We had a huge run last week.”

Sentiment was sluggish across Asia after The Wall Street Journal reported European Union stress tests of 91 banks in July understated some lenders’ holdings of potentially risky debt.

The report sparked worries that Europe’s debt crisis could flare up again.

“That is another negative driver of sentiment,” Wong said.

Investors dumped Japanese exporters after the yen hit a fresh 15-year high against the U.S. dollar Wednesday.

A strong yen hurts Japanese companies like Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp. as it cuts their overseas profits.

India’s Sensex was down 0.3 percent at 18,591.46 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.8 percent to 4,535.90. Shares in New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore all retreated.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.2721 from $1.2682 in New York late Tuesday. The dollar fell to 83.55 yen from 83.74 yen.

Benchmark crude for October delivery was down 25 cents at $73.84 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 51 cents to settle at $74.09 on Tuesday.

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