Selling the Stimulus
Day 5
Jan. 24, 2009
"In short, if we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse."
—President Obama, pushing his economic-stimulus package in his first weekly radio/YouTube address since taking office
The Obama transition team had originally hoped to get enough work done on the major economic-stimulus package to have him sign it on his first day in office. But that proved unrealistic and the deadline was pushed back to President's Day, forcing Obama to spend much of his first month extolling the package's benefits (3 million to 4 million jobs) in the face of uniform Republican opposition.
The stimulus-focused weekly message comes a day after Obama held the first of several bipartisan meetings on the topic at the White House. Obama and his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, had vowed that they would get Republican support on the bill, but House minority leader John Boehner left the initial meeting saying he was not convinced that spending nearly a trillion dollars to jump-start the economy was the best course of action. Maybe that's what prompted Obama to head to work during his first Saturday as President — he spends the morning huddling in the Oval Office with top aides Larry Summers, Peter Orszag and David Axelrod to discuss stimulus strategy.