Obama tweets at Twitter town hall

WASHINGTON - President Obama kicked off his first Twitter town hall with - what else? - a tweet.

Using a laptop set up on a lectern in the East Room of the White House, Obama typed this message: "In order to reduce the deficit, what costs would you cut and what investments would you keep?"

The tweet set the tone for the hour-long town hall focused on jobs and the economy, and hosted by Twitter, the social-media service. The White House sees social media as an opportunity for the president to interact with Americans directly, particularly the younger and more tech-savvy part of the electorate, as his reelection campaign ramps up.

Twitter selected the questions for the president from among the thousands of inquiries submitted from people across the country, including Republican House Speaker John A. Boehner, who asked Obama: "After embarking on a record spending binge that left us deeper in debt, where are the jobs?"

"This is a slightly skewed question," Obama said of his political rival's inquiry.

The president went on to answer Boehner's question by noting that the economy is, in fact, creating jobs, though not at a pace anyone should be satisfied with. He said there was more the government could do to boost the economy but also said that he hadn't always been able to get Republican support for doing so.

Obama also used the town hall as an opportunity to deliver a remarkably critical line about Republicans who are fighting with him over raising the nation's borrowing limit. Obama said GOP lawmakers should not use their votes on that matter as "a gun against the heads of the American people" to retain the tax breaks they want for corporate-jet owners and oil companies.

Twitter users had to keep their questions to the social-networking site's 140-character limit. But the president had no such restrictions. He answered in his trademark, lengthy form to questions on college costs, immigration, collective-bargaining rights, the debt limit, manufacturing jobs, the housing crisis, and other topics as Twitter users sent queries in by the tens of thousands.

"He's the leader of the free world," White House spokesman Jay Carney said ahead of the town hall. "He decides how short his answers will be."

The White House used its official Twitter account, @WhiteHouse, to boil Obama's answers down to no more than 140 characters. Twitter was also retweeting the condensed answers.

According to Twitter's Topic Tracker, 23 percent of the possible questions for the president focused on jobs. The budget and taxes each made up 18 percent.

The president took 18 questions from the Twitterverse before the town-hall moderator and Twitter cofounder, Jack Dorsey, turned the conversation around and read the president an array of people's responses to the live tweet from Obama that started the event.