Obama warns of dire consequences without stimulus
"I don't believe it's too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible," Obama said in a speech set to be delivered at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., outside Washington. Excerpts from his prepared text were released in advance by his transition team.
It was the fourth day in a row that Obama has made a pitch for a huge infusion of taxpayer dollars to revive the sinking economy he will inherit from President George W. Bush.
Obama's events have increasingly taken on the trappings and air of the presidency, with the speech coming a full 12 days before he takes over at the White House a particularly showy move. Presidents-elect typically stick to naming administration appointments and otherwise staying in the background during the transition period between Election Day and Inauguration Day, but Obama has clearly made the calculation that a nation anxious about its economic outlook and eager to bid farewell to Bush needs to hear from him differently and more frequently.
Indeed, the economic news is grim.
Consumers and companies are folding under the negative forces of a collapsed housing market, a global credit crunch and the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. The recession, which started in December 2007, already is the longest in a quarter-century.
A report that came out the same day as Obama's speech showed that the number of people continuing to draw jobless benefits unexpectedly rose sharply to the highest level since November 1982, demonstrating the troubles the unemployed are having in finding new jobs.
And unemployment figures due out Friday are expected to show that the U.S. lost a net total of 500,000 jobs in December. If accurate, that would bring 2008's total job losses to 2.4 million, the first annual job loss since 2001 and the highest since 1945, though the number of jobs has more than tripled since then.
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Its the people that are corrupt and they make lots of excuses of...
Al Pelaez | Jan. 27, 2009 at 8:55 p.m.
..have to go.
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Both parties.. | Jan. 8, 2009 at 1:09 p.m.
YOU CAN NOT SPEND YOUR WAY OUT OF DEBT!
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Voter | Jan. 8, 2009 at 1:04 p.m.
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