President Obama met today with former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, head of his panel of outside economic advisors, and sounded an upbeat tone when he took a question from reporters.
"If we are keeping focused on all of the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy, all the outstanding companies, workers, all of the innovation and dynamism in this economy then we're going to get through this," Obama said. "I'm very confident about that."
President and his top officials have spent the week selling the administration policies to deal with the downturn. The program includes more federal spending on infrastructure, tax cuts and credits for families to stimulate spending, pushing allies to increase their stimulus efforts and using federal dollars to support beleaguered banks unable to supply credit.
Republicans have attacked the Obama plans for creating too much debt while Democrats and some economists have questioned whether the federal outlay of trillions of dollars is large enough. This week, the Obama camp struck back.
The president and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told reporters of their efforts to urge other countries to increase their spending when the heads of G-20, the world's leading industrialized and emerging nations, meet next month in London. Geithner is in London meeting with his counterparts to hammer out an agreement for top officials to sign.President and his top officials have spent the week selling the administration policies to deal with the downturn. The program includes more federal spending on infrastructure, tax cuts and credits for families to stimulate spending, pushing allies to increase their stimulus efforts and using federal dollars to support beleaguered banks unable to supply credit.
Republicans have attacked the Obama plans for creating too much debt while Democrats and some economists have questioned whether the federal outlay of trillions of dollars is large enough. This week, the Obama camp struck back.
The meeting with Volcker focused on plans to help credit markets. "We are spending every day working through how to get credit flowing again," Obama said. He said a new plan to help small businesses was being developed.
"There are big economic problems behind the financial system too, and they're going to take longer to work out," said Volcker of the credit crunch. "While we're working on this immediate crisis," he said, there is a "continuing crisis in the financial system."
Obama's top economic advisor, the director of the National Economic Council, this morning told on forum that the United States was at a moment similar to what confronted President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Great Depression...
