US president Barack Obama’s budget will propose an ambitious six-year, $478bn (€422bn) public works programme of highway, bridge, and transit upgrades, half of it financed with a one-time mandatory tax on the profits that US companies have amassed overseas, White House officials said.

Barack Obama hailed the last-minute deal that pulled America back from the “fiscal cliff”, but warned that he “will not compromise” over his insistence that Congress lift the government debt ceiling.

US President Barack Obama is hailing a last-minute deal that avoids the so-called “fiscal cliff” but insists it is just one step in a broader effort to boost the economy and shrink federal deficits.

A weary Congress sent President Barack Obama legislation to avert the economy-threatening “fiscal cliff” of middle-class tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts today, hours before financial markets reopened after the new year holiday.