PATERSON, N.J. — President Obama, surveying some of the most crippling flood damage from Tropical Storm Irene, vowed on Sunday that budgetary wrangling in Washington would not delay federal aid to stricken communities.

In a three-hour visit to North Jersey, which is struggling to clean up the muddy mess left last week by the area’s worst flooding in more than a century, Mr. Obama went house to house meeting with residents who pointed out the high-water marks that stained the walls of their living rooms.

Later, standing on a bridge spanning the still-swollen Passaic River, the president assured flood victims that they did not have to doubt whether the federal government would follow through with disaster aid. The House majority leader, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, and other Republicans have suggested that additional aid money must first be offset by equal spending cuts, a prospect that Mr. Obama rejected.

“The entire country is behind you,” Mr. Obama said. “I want to make it very clear that we are going to meet our federal obligations.”