WASHINGTON — Standing before the nation, President Barack Obama summoned politicians and public alike Tuesday night to forge a path out of the worst economic disaster in a quarter-century by embracing shared sacrifice and costly new endeavors to improve health care, schools and the environment.
“The time to take charge of our future is here,” Obama declared in a 52-minute speech, his first address to a joint session of Congress.
Adding words of reassurance, he said, “Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”
Bigger bailout foreseen
To deal with the current economic crisis, deepening each day, the president said more money would be needed to rescue troubled banks beyond the $700 billion already committed last year. He said he knows that bailout billions for banks are unpopular — “I promise you, I get it,” he said — but he also insisted it was the only way to get credit moving again to households and businesses, the lifeblood of the American economy.
Along with aid for banks, he also called on Congress to move quickly on legislation to overhaul regulations on the nation’s financial markets.
“I ask this Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary,” Obama said. “Because we cannot consign our nation to an open-ended recession.”
With U.S. automakers struggling for survival, Obama also said he would allow neither their demise nor “their own bad practices” to be rewarded. “I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it,” he said.
Economic revival with broader agenda
Thinking longer-term, Obama said in a speech lacking many specifics that both political parties must give up favored programs while uniting behind his campaign promises to help the millions without health insurance, build better schools and move the nation to more-efficient fuel use. He skipped the traditional litany of new programs common in such speeches but spoke on broad generalities about goals and themes that formed the backbone of his presidential campaign.
Obama reached for both candor and can-do, blending the kind of grim honesty that has become his trademark since taking office with a greater emphasis on optimism.
“The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation,” he said.
The central argument of his speech was that his still-unfolding economic revival plan has room for — even demands — a broader agenda. This is the big chore of his young presidency, and Obama’s hope was that he can begin to persuade the country that the longer-term items on his presidential agenda are as important to the nation’s economic well-being as unchoking credit and turning around unemployment numbers.
“The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care, the schools that aren’t preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit,” Obama said.
He urged lawmakers to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change by creating a cap-and-trade system of limits and pollution allowances.
And he said the budget he is sending to Congress on Thursday will call for $15 billion a year in federal spending to spur development of environmentally friendly but so far cost-ineffective energy sources such as wind and solar, biofuels, clean coal and more fuel-efficient vehicles.
He said his budget request also will create new incentives for teacher performance and support for innovative education programs. He asked every American to commit to completing a year or more of higher education or career training.
Obama said the economic mess was one he inherited. “We have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity, where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter or the next election,” he said.
Nonetheless, he aimed to show he is tackling the situation with both urgency and strict oversight for how the staggering sums are being spent. The massive stimulus plan, an overhaul of the financial sector bailout, and a $275 billion rescue for struggling homeowners are already in place, and more is likely on the way, Obama said.
Pledge to halve deficit
Even as Washington pours money into the economic recovery, Obama said the budget deficit, at $1.3 trillion and ballooning, must be brought under control.
He promised he would slash it by half by the end of his term in 2013, mostly by ending U.S. combat in Iraq and eliminating some of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.
He said his budget officials have identified a total of $2 trillion in savings over the next 10 years, also including ending education programs “that don’t work” and payments to large agribusinesses “that don’t need them,” eliminating wasteful no-bid contracts in Iraq and spending on weapons systems no longer needed in the post-Cold War era, and rooting out waste in Medicare.
“Everyone in this chamber, Democrats and Republicans, will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars,” he said. “And that includes me.”
He touted his decision to end the practice of leaving Iraq and Afghanistan war spending out of the main budget. “For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price,” Obama said.
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