Obama News Conference 3/24/09 - Part 1

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama reassured Americans that his policies will lift the United States out of its recession, using a nationally televised news conference to press for support for his economic programs.

Obama sought to shift the attention of the nation Tuesday away from the outrage over massive bonuses paid to executives of bailed-out insurance giant American International Group. Instead, he looked to cast the spotlight on a series of plans he has offered to revive the U.S. economy.

His latest efforts were announced this week. On Monday, his administration released details of a plan to thaw the nation's credit freeze by buying up toxic assets clogging banks' balance sheets. And earlier Tuesday, top economic officials pushed Congress for new powers to regulate nonbank financial companies like AIG.

In his opening remarks, Obama said jobs have been saved because of the $787 billion economic stimulus measure that Congress passed, and the United States is "beginning to see signs of increased sales and stabilized housing prices for the first time in a long time."

At the same time, he said full-fledged recovery is months away, adding, "it will take patience."

He also said his administration was taking steps to make sure banks have money to lend "even if the economy gets worse."

Obama remains widely popular, but his administration has endured some rocky weeks. The outrage over the AIG bonuses has kept the administration on the defensive. Republicans have denounced what they see as wasteful spending in the economic stimulus program and in Obama's $3.6 trillion budget proposal. And he has run into opposition from some Senate Democrats on a middle-class tax cut that is part of the budget proposal.

But Obama said his administration was attacking the economic crisis "on all fronts."

"It's a strategy to create jobs, to help responsible homeowners, to restart lending and to grow our economy over the long term," Obama said.

The news conference came as Obama prepares for a European trip next week that includes a London summit on the global economic crisis, while, away from the economy, an announcement is expected by Friday on a revamped U.S. strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

While the news conference was dominated by domestic economic issues, Obama also touched on some international matters.

Asked about the drug violence in Mexico, Obama praised President Felipe Calderon's efforts to stop drug gangs, adding "we need to do more to make sure that illegal guns and cash aren't flowing back to these cartels."

He also rejected a call by China for a new global currency to replace the U.S. dollar.

The Obama administration's proposal to restart the financial system sent stocks surging around the globe Monday, though U.S. stocks slipped back somewhat on Tuesday.

The financial rescue plan seeks to melt a vast credit freeze by helping banks shed bad loans. Under the proposal, the government will finance the purchase by private investors of as much as $1 trillion of the $2 trillion in bad assets still held by the nation's banks, in the hopes of freeing banks to begin lending more freely and churn up economic activity.

But anti-AIG ferocity threatens to undermine Obama's efforts to bail out the financial sector, by possibly scaring investors away from the new program and by making it more difficult to wring more bailout money out of Congress.

Obama said he was as angry as anyone at the AIG bonus payments but added, "we can't afford to demonize every investor or entrepreneur who tries to make a profit."

He defended his decision to wait a few days before expressing his anger over the AIG bonuses. "It took us a couple days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak."

On Wednesday, a day after taking questions in prime-time television viewing hours — to maximize the unfiltered exposure of his message — Obama is heading to Congress to lobby Senate Democrats.

Despite campaigning on a promise to break through Washington's partisan divisions, he has won little Republican support for his economic plans.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell cast the proposed budget as an over-spending, over-taxing disaster. An analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released last Friday estimates Obama's budget would generate deficits totaling $9.3 trillion over the next decade.

"If these plans are carried out, we run the risk of looking like a Third World country," McConnell said.

But Obama repeated his claim that his budget plans would cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term in 2011 — "even under the most pessimistic estimates."

Obama's job approval rating is 63 percent, according to the Gallup polling organization. That number has been relatively stable recently, down from the 68 percent when the president took office mostly on a loss of support among Republicans.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Obama
• News
• Conference
• Economy
• Press
• Stimulus
• Budget
• Congress

[mexiluvsw]

you know what a great renewable source of enery, hemp! so just legalize it already!

[JJanerique]

Space is the future. NASA. Can do it. Remember that it is utterly important we go far. Remember...

J.C

[JJanerique]

Like Columbus said, America is the most beautiful place in the whole world. Space is needed to operate, in together... America needs to go to space.....

[000IIINATIONIII000]

Lies you can believe in.

[cruxto]

obama is a piece of shit...you must be black... obama spent 20 years in a racist black church with rev, wright... he is an effeminate son of a muslim and a whore... i hope he gets brain cancer....

[sabbirsa]

hey its either him or mccain. Oh I am sorry I just realized that I am talking to a hopeless person.

[klg1956]

CNN, MSNBC, CBS, Reporters......"Mr. President, the country is going down the tubes, unemployment is at a 26 year high, your trillion dollar bailout[s] aren't working, and Union jobs are bankrupting us, so here is the hard question: America wants to know, do you wear boxers or briefs?"....LOL

[techisdestruction]

They have a good speaking president for once though i have to say unlike bush he don't leave answers unattended. but he is a fraud because as long as you are controlled by men and those men feed you and house you, you will be treated as a dog or shit they don't care they take as they wish though they are just like us we are scared to do anything because we don't want to lose our pathetic lives and we only rely on hope that is the greed instilled into this world and until we are free we suffer

[techisdestruction]

to servicesource the only president i could partially understand was jfk too bad he warned us too. well I ain't worried at all we are all going to die I won't waste my life worring when they will kill me because they will I also don't want to waste my life worring about money, politics, gov't, it is a waste. They have destroyed paradise and made us work to ensure their asses now we try so hard just to take a vacation in paradise and we accept that shit as it is so we deserve what will happen

[jmagic32971]

yeah just keep beliving in this obama guy they got millions of caskets waiting for you once they cut of your goverment benefits cause of the collapsed system just keep defending this man cause youre stupid and uninformed about this guy and when reality strikes the TRUTH WILL HURT VERY BADLY