Feb 09 2009
Obama in first presidential press conference: “The party now is over”
Obama gestures to critics of his stimulus package. AP Photo by Ron Edmonds.
Is it just me, or did our new President look pissed in his first press conference? I don’t blame him, being president of the mess that is the United States right now would probably put me in a sour mood too. Hey Barack, you ran not me - Now let’s see what you can do.
“Last month our economy lost 598,000 jobs - which is nearly the equivalent in losing every single job in the state of Maine. And if there’s anyone out there who still doesn’t believe this constitutes a full-blown crisis I’d suggest speaking to one of the millions of Americans whose lives have been turned upside down because they don’t know where their next paycheck is going to be coming from,” declared President Barack Obama.
Obama went on to detail to Americans how this massive stimulus package will help our economy turn the corner.
I have to admit I’m not all that enthralled by this package. However, I can see what it’s trying to do. While it’s easy to pick on giving tax breaks and funding to Hollywood, California’s economy depends in a large part off of what happens in Hollywood. There are a lot of examples like this receiving criticism from both sides of the aisle in the package. We can nitpick at this thing all day, but at some point we need to move forward with some sort of action.
“I can’t tell you for sure that everything in this plan will work exactly as we hope, but I can tell you with complete confidence that a failure to act will only deepen this crisis as well as the pain felt by millions of Americans.”I can’t tell you for sure that everything in this plan will work exactly as we hope, but I can tell you with complete confidence that a failure to act will only deepen this crisis as well as the pain felt by millions of Americans.” Said Obama, predicting that within next year we could see marked improvement in the economy.
And I agree with a lot of what Obama is saying. While tax cuts can play a vital role in getting out of this recession, it’s not the answer. The problem in our country right now can only be fixed by increasing spending. Well no one in America is spending business-as-usual right now, with the exception of our government. So why not let our governmental spending prop up our economy until Americans have money to spend again? This is the essence behind Obama’s admittedly imperfect plan.
“At this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life,” said Obama, adding “The plan that ultimately emerges from Congress must be big enough and bold enough to meet the size of the economic challenge we face right now.”
One more thing to note: This will easily be the largest spending bill in the history of our country. Obama had better hope he gets this right, because he won’t get a chance like this again. And if it does indeed go south, this blog will be one to document the decisions that were made and the results that occurred from them. The principles of this package go against a lot of my libertarian philosophies, but to be fair, Obama did win - and he’s confident that this will work.
I hope he’s right.
Video of press conference below. Enjoy.
Questions part one.
And part two.
Cheers!
