Illinois among states Obama to visit for business ideas

President Barack Obama meets with business leaders at the White House today for talks on creating jobs and boosting the economy.

The president will solicit further ideas on the economy with small-business owners and workers during a three-day bus trip through Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois that begins Aug. 15.

“He wants to discuss the economy, the industries that the business leaders represent, and what they’re hearing and seeing and ideas they have,” spokesman Jay Carney said yesterday.

With 15 months before the presidential election, Obama is struggling to jump-start a weak economy and find ways to reduce the 9.1 percent unemployment rate.

At Johnson Controls Inc. in Holland, Michigan yesterday, he urged Congress when it returns in September to pass three pending trade deals, renew the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance program, and fund road and bridge construction.

“And over the coming weeks, I’m going to be putting out more proposals, week by week, that will help businesses hire and put people back to work,” Obama said.

The president will be talking today with a “small and diverse” group of business leaders, Carney said. The White House hasn’t yet released the names of those attending the meeting, which is closed to press coverage.

Obama has hosted more than two dozen roundtables, lunches or dinners with business leaders since taking office in January 2009. The most recent was July 12 when he met with executives of United Parcel Service Inc., International Business Machines Corp., BNSF Railway Co. and Darden Restaurants Inc., among others.