This morning President Obama addressed the nation.
And because my (not so) secret wish of becoming a DC journalist will never come to pass, I thought I’d re-post highlights from one of my favorite political sites. While it’s not all directly housing related, we know that stabilizing the economy is priority number one in getting the housing market moving again. In summary: he feels our pain, fault for this economic mess lays with Wall Street and Main Street, and (you guessed it) HOPE.
The below notes are from Politico 44 - the daily diary of the 44th President. Read the full diary from today here.
What you need to know from Obama’s Georgetown speech…
Obama says he wants to explain how we got into the crisis, how we’ll get out. “This recession is different. This recession was not caused by a normal downturn in the business cycle. It was caused by a perfect storm of irresponsibility and poor decision-making that stretched from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street.” (11:47 a.m.)
TAKING ON THE SPENDING CRITICS: “If every family in America cuts back, then no one is spending any money, which means there are more layoffs, and the economy gets even worse. That’s why the government has to step in and temporarily boost spending in order to stimulate demand. And that’s exactly what we’re doing right now.” (11:53 a.m.)
Obama says he confronted “a downward spiral” on the day he took office. That phrase was not in his prepared remarks. — Amie Parnes (11:54 a.m.)
PAGING PAUL KRUGMAN — Obama on nationalization: “The reason we have not taken this step has nothing to do with any ideological or political judgment we’ve made about government involvement in banks, and it’s certainly not because of any concern we have for the management and shareholders whose actions have helped cause this mess.
“Rather, it is because we believe that preemptive government takeovers are likely to end up costing taxpayers even more in the end, and because it is more likely to undermine than to create confidence.” (11:58 a.m.)
GET OUT YET PITCHFORKS — Obama takes aim at Wall Street: “It is not sustainable to have an economy where in one year, 40% of our corporate profits came from a financial sector that was based too much on inflated home prices, maxed out credit cards, overleveraged banks and overvalued assets; or an economy where the incomes of the top 1% have skyrocketed while the typical working household has seen their income decline by nearly $2,000.” (12:07 a.m.)
‘FIVE PILLARS’ — Obama lays out the top priorities for economic recovery: “New rules for Wall Street that will reward drive and innovation; new investments in education that will make our workforce more skilled and competitive; new investments in renewable energy and technology that will create new jobs and industries; new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses; and new savings in our federal budget that will bring down the debt for future generations.” (12:12 p.m.)
Vision thing: Obama wants “a place where anyone from anywhere with a good idea or the will to work can live the dream they’ve heard so much about. ” Wraps up. (12:28 p.m.)
Read the full diary on Politico
Washington Post coverage of the speech
Popularity: 3% [?]
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April 15th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
The thing is, I like about 90% of what Obama says and 10% of what he actually does. It makes me want to not listen when he talks, even though I usually like his speeches