Keeping the economy front and center, President Barack Obama heads west this week to sign the $787 billion stimulus bill and tackle the home mortgage foreclosure crisis.
The president’s determination to sign the stimulus bill into law in Denver on Tuesday suggests Obama will continue taking his economic message to the American people, who are giving him high marks for handling the crisis. The symbolism is obvious for Colorado, where a growing green-energy industry will draw major benefits from the stimulus.
“He is determined to keep in touch with the American people who sent him here to do this job,” senior adviser David Axelrod said.
The direct appeals for public support follow scant GOP backing in Congress for his agenda and increasing partisan bickering.
Passage of the stimulus measure – unprecedented in its cost – was a major triumph for Obama as he struggles to lift the country from a financial nosedive unseen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Top aides said Sunday the skyrocketing unemployment rate would fall once the money begins to flow. But they also said the economy will continue its downward spiral in the short term.
“I think it’s safe to say that things have not yet bottomed out,” press secretary Robert Gibbs said. “But this is a big step forward toward making that improvement and putting people back to work.”
The stimulus package, which passed with no GOP support in the House and three Republican votes in the Senate, aims to save or create as many as 3.5 million jobs through massive government investment while boosting consumer spending through modest tax cuts.
‘Outreach plan’
Gibbs said the president had taken “unprecedented” steps in a bipartisan effort to include Republicans in the legislative process. Speaking on the Sunday morning talk shows, he and Axelrod insisted that the massive spending and tax-cut bill reflected ideas from both political parties.
“Their suggestions have been taken seriously, Bob,” Gibbs told Bob Schieffer on CBS’ Face the Nation. “We’ll continue to reach out to them. It’s an outreach plan that includes, as you said, more than just Wednesday night cocktails. We’re going to listen for their ideas. This president is willing to listen to anybody who has got an idea that will help get this economy moving and get people back to work.”
Axelrod said on Fox News Sunday that “old habits die hard.” But, he said, “the package reflects the thinking of members of both parties. And I think that over time, there’ll be – there’ll be a positive effect of just having dialogue, of just talking, which has not happened for a long time in this town.”
But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was highly critical, declaring the stimulus would create what he called “generational theft” – huge federal deficits for years to come.
McCain, who lost the presidential race to Obama, said the Democrat had backtracked on promises of bipartisanship and was off to a bad start. “Let’s start over now and sit down together,” McCain said.
Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., put it more bluntly: “If this is going to be bipartisanship, the country’s screwed.”
Executive bonuses
One issue in the stimulus package, limits on executive bonuses, caused some friction among Democrats. The administration wants to revise that part of the stimulus package even after it becomes law, Axelrod said.
Gibbs also said the administration would seek to “strike the right balance” on the compensation question by discussing changes with House and Senate members. Asked if Obama would enforce the bill and was satisfied with it, Gibbs replied, “We will sign this bill into law on Tuesday.”
Two top lawmakers on congressional committees that oversee financial regulations appeared to dismiss the possibility that the administration would not follow the compensation requirements.
“Mr. Gibbs may not like it, but it is going to be enforced,” Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said on CBS. “This is not an option. This is not, frankly, the Bush administration, where they’re going to issue a signing statement and refuse to enforce it. They will enforce it.”
Housing crisis
With the stimulus victory in hand, Obama planned to shift to the housing crisis with an announcement Wednesday in Phoenix.
Late last summer, Americans began feeling the pinch of the recession and left the housing market in huge numbers. That coincided with a sharp increase in defaults on home mortgages, a devastating combination that triggered the financial crisis. Lending froze as banks and investment houses realized they were holding trillions of dollars in bad assets.
An emergency $700 billion bailout program was passed late last year, and the Bush administration used half to forestall a financial collapse. But the flow of credit did not ease and use of the money was criticized because it was poorly administered and overseen.
Obama is now working to leverage the second portion of the bailout money into a program that could result in $2 trillion in government and private-sector cash infusions to help banks and investment houses clear away “toxic” holdings and thereby spur lending.
“It is going to take time to lay out every aspect of this plan,” Obama said Friday.
dallasnews.com
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