Obama to Congress: Pass stimulus, don't play games

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, pressuring lawmakers to urgently approve a massive economic recovery bill, turned his first prime-time news conference Monday night into a determined defense of his emergency plan and an offensive against Republicans who try to "play the usual political games."

He said the recession has left the nation so weak that only the federal government can "jolt our economy back to life." And he declared that failure to act swiftly and boldly "could turn a crisis into a catastrophe."

He said the country could be in better shape by next year, as measured by increased hiring, lending, home values and other factors. "If we get things right, then, starting next year, we can start seeing significant improvement," Obama said.

With more than 11 million Americans now out of work, Obama defended his program against Republican criticism that it is loaded with pork-barrel spending and will not create jobs.

"The plan is not perfect," the president said. "No plan is. 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."

Obama spoke from the East Room of the White House in a news conference that lasted almost exactly one hour. He hit repeatedly at the themes he has emphasized in recent weeks, including at a town hall meeting to promote his plan earlier in the day in Elkhart, Ind.

Obama seemed cool and unruffled as he addressed the nation for the first time from the White House. He ducked several questions, for example refusing to say if his administration would alter the Bush administration's policy of refusing to allow photographs of flag-draped coffins of America's war dead.

He also refused to say how long U.S. troops would be in Afghanistan after his planned troop buildup there. And he refused to reveal details of new rules governing the bailout of financial firms.

When the stimulus bill passed the House last month, not a single Republican voted for it. On Monday an $838 billion version of the legislation cleared a crucial test vote in the Senate by a 61-36 margin, with all but three Republican senators opposing it.

Obama said he had made a deliberate effort to reach out to the GOP, putting three Republicans into his Cabinet, and "as I continue to make these overtures, over time, hopefully that will be reciprocated."