President Barack Obama used his first
prime-time news conference to paint an extraordinarily bleak picture of America’s
future if Congress fails to move quickly to pass stimulus legislation, warning that
inaction “could turn a crisis into a catastrophe.”
He told Americans not yet suffering from the economic downturn that they could soon face
the same fate as the down and out in Elkhart, Ind, a city he visited today as part of a
campaign aimed at convincing Americans to press Congress to pass the recovery legislation.
“People have no idea what to do or who to turn to. They can’t pay their bills
and they’ve stopped spending money,” the president said in his opening
statement. “Local TV stations have started running public service announcements that
tell people where to find food banks, even as the food banks don’t have enough to
meet the demand….Breaking that cycle is exactly what the plan that’s moving
through Congress is designed to do.”
Ahead of Tuesday’s Senate vote on an $827 billion stimulus package, Obama attempted
to swipe the rhetoric of Republicans who are warning that the massive spending in the plan
will explode the deficit and drive up the debt.
“A failure to act will only deepen this crisis as well as the pain felt by millions
of Americans,” the president said. “Doing too little or nothing at all will
result in even greater deficits of jobs, incomes and confidence. Those are deficits that
could turn a crisis into a catastrophe and I refuse to let that happen.”
Obama also said some Republican warnings about the mounting debt were hypocritical –
and did little to disguise his belief that his victory in November empowered him to act
boldly reject the ideology of the past eight years, which he blamed for bringing America
to this perilous state in the first place.
“When I hear that from folks who presided over the doubling of the national debt, I
just want them not to be engaged in some revisionist history,” he said. “I
inherited the economic crisis that we have right now and the debt that we have right now….
The most important thing we can do for our budget crisis right now is to make sure that
our economy doesn’t tank.”He also made an unapologetic call for a major
government role in righting the economy – in the face of Republican criticism of a
new New Deal — saying he believed only the federal government had the tools and the
wherewithal to play that role.
Yet for all his grim talk about the recession, Obama said he’s hoping that the
economy could start to rebound as early as 2010. “If we get things right, starting
next year, we can start seeing some significant improvement,” Obama predicted.
In an hour-long appearance devoted heavily to stimulus and recession, Obama also made an
unusually direct appeal to Iran, suggesting that his administration is actively working to
find opportunities for direct contact with the Islamic government.
“My expectation is in the coming month we will be looking for openings that can be
created where we can start stting across the table, face-to-face diplomatic overtures that
will allow us to move our policy in a new direction,” he said. “There has been a
lot of distrust built up over the years so it’s not going to happen overnight.”
Obama did not say whether he foresaw, as he suggested in the campaign, face-to-face
meetings soon between himself and Iranian leaders, or if he was referring to a dialogue at
a lower level. “Now, it’s time for Iran to send some signals that it wants to
act differently, as well,” Obama added.
Obama also called the revelation that Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez used steroids
earlier this decade “depressing news on top of what’s been a flurry of
depressing items when it comes to Major League Baseball,” Obama said. “I think
it tarnishes an entire era to some degree.”
He praised the league for its efforts to root out steroid use, but said he was “probably
most concerned” about the message Rodriguez’s admission that he used steroirds
in 2003 would send to young people.
In other developments, he said the Pentagon is reviewing a Bush administration policy
banning photographs of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq. He sounded cool to an idea
by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) for a “truth and reconciliation commission” on
possible Bush-era offenses in the war on terror. “My general inclination is to say,
let’s get it right moving forward,” he said.
But for Americans tuning in to hear some reassuring words from their new president on
the economy, what they heard instead were some dire warnings wrapped in an almost
professorial explanation of the causes of the economic meltdown – and his
prescription for pulling the nation out of it.
The president also rejected Republican suggestions that he came into office eager to
preside over a monstrous government spending spree.
“I would love not to have to spend money right now,” Obama said. “You know,
this notion that somehow I came in here just ginned up to spend $800 billion…that
wasn't how I envisioned my presidency beginning. But we have to adapt to existing
circumstances,” he said.
The press conference was part of an increasingly vigorous effort by the new Obama
administration to encourage to shore up public support for the stimulus. The president is
scheduled to fly to Fort Myers, Fla. Tuesday for a similar event. Aides also added a stop
in Peoria, Ill. on Thursday to keep the pressure on.
Earlier Monday, Obama began signaling specific objections to the stimulus plan making its
way through the Senate. Somewhat hesitantly, he told an audience in Elkhart that he
disagreed with aspects of the changes Senate moderates made to the plan passed earlier by
the House. "I'll be honest with you, the Senate version cut a lot of these education
dollars. I would like to see some of them restored," he said.
Labeling the money as “education” funds may help sell the concept to the
American public. However, for states such as California, which is facing a fiscal
meltdown, the ostensible purpose of the money is less important than that the funds start
flowing immediately and in a large enough volume to fill states’ staggering budget
gaps.
Obama acknowledged somewhat wearily that he may have made a tactical error by including
tax cuts, which he said Republicans supported, in early versions of the legislation. Those
moves nonetheless won him zero Republican votes in the House and only three in Monday test
votes in the Senate.
“What I could have done is started off with no tax cuts, then add some and let them
take credit for it…maybe that’s what I should I have done. That’s the
lesson I learned,” he said.
On Monday, White House economic adviser Larry Summers also criticized some proposals
afloat in Congress to jump start the housing market by offering low-interest loans to new
homebuyers. “I think we’ve got to be very skeptical of any government
administered price,” Summers told CNN. “Some of the suggestions that have been
made would involve, literally, the issuance of trillions of dollars of new federal debt,
and that’s probably a step further than is responsible for us to go to.”
One indication of the urgency of the economic situation: Obama seized the high-profile
stage of a prime-time East Room press conference much earlier in his term than have other
presidents. President Bush, who was not a fan of such formal sessions, waited until
October 2001 to do his first. President Clinton did his first prime-time news conference
in in June 1993.
|
Be A Golden Rule Citizen! 
