Jobs, healthcare and federal budget deficits all topped the list of concerns, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Job creation easily leads all other priorities, with 43 percent saying it's the most important issue facing the nation. Healthcare followed second, with 18 percent, while 14 percent said the budget deficit — a central topic in the 2010 elections — is the top issue. 

In a separate poll, more than half of those asked disapprove of the way President Obama has handled the economy, with 35 percent saying it has improved during his first two years in office compared with 40 percent a year ago, according to the AP-GfK poll.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs reiterated Friday that the recovery will take time, especially recovering the 8 million jobs lost during the economic downturn. 

"We’ve now said this for two years and one day, that it’s going to take a long time to get out of this hole," Gibbs told reporters during a briefing on Air Force One. "We lost 8 million jobs on top of the fact that for most people, most people spent a decade not seeing their paycheck go up despite the fact that they were working harder and working longer."

A panel of Social Security experts on Friday were divided in their predictions on how President Obama will handle entitlement reform in next week’s State of the Union address.

Deficit hawks hope that Obama will use the speech to begin a bipartisan drive toward a balanced budget by seizing the initiative from House Republicans on spending.

They have argued Obama should go beyond the non-security discretionary spending cuts the GOP is seeking by embracing cuts to defense spending as well as tax code and entitlement reform.

“There are many people on both sides of the aisle, especially in the Senate who want to see him do that,” said Maya MacGuineas, the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. She spoke at a Capitol Hill event organized by The Urban Institute.

When Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sat down with business leaders last Friday, representatives for his department called it one in a series of gatherings dealing with corporate tax reform.

They weren’t kidding.

On Friday afternoon, Geithner and other Treasury officials are set to discuss corporate tax reform with representatives from a collection of more than 15 think tanks, associations and academic institutions.

The federal government needs to take a long hard look at which transportation projects are best for the economy before pumping shrinking amounts of budget dollars into them, according to a new report released Friday.

The report was authored by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and top economic adviser to Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential campaign, and Dr. Martin Wachs, a senior principal researcher at the nonprofit RAND Corporation. It was released as part of the Bipartisan Policy Center's National Transportation Policy Project.

The new GOP-led House Financial Services Committee plans to cast a wide net with its first hearing, exploring how the government is standing in the way of job creation.

Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) announced the Jan. 26 hearing, dubbed "Promoting Economic Recovery and Job Creation: The Road Forward."

AARP, the largest lobbying organization on behalf of seniors, is taking a wait-and-see approach on a possible Social Security reform effort this year, the group's top strategist told The Hill on Friday. 

The AARP's approach contrasts with a coalition of Social Security advocates who have launched a million-dollar advertising campaign to oppose potential changes to the entitlement. 

AARP Executive Vice President of Policy and Strategy John Rother said AARP is waiting to see what President Obama proposes, if anything, in Tuesday’s State of the Union address. Deficit hawks are urging the president to present a long-term deficit reduction plan that will include tackling entitlements.

Rother added that his organization would be unhappy if the president endorses the changes proposed by the White House debt commission in December.

“That would be a big problem for us,” Rother said.

Bank of America, the largest U.S. bank by assets, reported Friday a $1.24 billion loss in the final three months of the year driven by costs related to its 2008 purchase of mortgage giant Countrywide. 

The bank has previously announced a $2 billion loss on its mortgage business and litigation with its faulty loans and foreclosure process, leading to a net income loss for the year of $2.24 billion compared with a $6.28 billion profit recorded in 2009, according to the fourth quarter statement. 

Excluding the impairment charge, the bank earned 4 cents per diluted share, or $756 million. 

"Last year was a necessary repair and rebuilding year," Brian Moynihan, president and chief executive of Bank of America, said in a statement. "Our results reflect the progress we are making at putting legacy, primarily mortgage-related, issues behind us."

The Federal Reserve would focus its efforts exclusively on controlling inflation and stop attempting to simultaneously maximize employment under a bill introduced Friday by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.).

Pence, who introduced a similar bill late in the last Congress, said that it is the government's job, not the Fed's, to boost economic growth and drive up employment.

"It is the job of Congress and the President to put forth pro-growth policies on taxes, to rein in government spending and to reduce the regulatory burden in order to create an environment that is friendly to our nation's job creators," he said in a statement. "Printing money is no substitute for sound fiscal policy."

Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have announced a plan to introduce legislation they say would prevent the issuing of patents for tax strategies. 

According to a release from the Senate Finance Committee, patents allow their holders to use tax loopholes exclusively and at times force fees on taxpayers merely for following the tax code.