Declaring that “America’s economy is strong and getting stronger,” President George Bush told Congress on Monday that last year’s tax cut has been doing the job in reviving business growth.

In the annual Economic Report of the President, Bush says the U.S. has been able to overcome a series of shocks including the bursting of the stock market bubble in early 2000, the terrorist attacks of 9-11, and corporate accounting scandals.

The economic report, prepared by the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, predicts that the number of workers on U.S. non-farm payrolls is likely to rise to an average to 132.7 million this year.

The unemployment rate is now falling, hitting 5.6% in January, a month in which the economy created 112,000 jobs. However, the country still has 2.2 million fewer payroll jobs than when Bush took office in January 2001.

The president credited last year’s tax cut for making a sizable contribution to boosting economic growth.

The economic report came a week after Bush sent his new budget to Congress, a document that projects that this year’s deficit will hit a record US$521 billion.

Bush blamed the huge deficit on the recession and the costs of boosting security at home and fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.