Obama Speaks: The Power of Positive Thinking
By Kevin Robinson in News on Feb 25, 2009 3:20PM
In his first official address before a joint session of congress, President Barack Obama struck a tone more reminiscent of a campaign stump speech than a presidential address. After weeks of bad news on Wall Street, compounded by sometimes public musings by lawmakers about the sorry state of the economy, Obama struck positive notes throughout his speech: "while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken,'' the president said, "though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.'' Given the downward spiral of the markets recently in spite of the administration's attempts to shore up the economy, that may not be such a bad thing.
While the current economic crisis was a common thread throughout the speech, the president talked about what's next on his agenda. He touched on health care reform, energy independence, national security and education, tying all of those issues back to long-term economic recovery and stabilization, and the impact that those issues will have on the national budget, telling congress that:
The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight. Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank. We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before. The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform. Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for. And though all these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before.
Among the commitments Obama made last night were honesty and transparency in the federal budget process, promising to include the costs of both wars in spending proposals and that "we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them. We'll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use." He vowed to "root out the waste, fraud, and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn’t make our seniors any healthier," and "address the growing costs in Medicare and Social Security. Comprehensive health care reform is the best way to strengthen Medicare for years to come. And we must also begin a conversation on how to do the same for Social Security, while creating tax-free universal savings accounts for all Americans."
Now that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been signed into law and the still-new administration moves into the next act of its first 100 days, Obama has signaled that he's only just begun. With a flurry of legislation, executive orders and plans for regulations behind him, Obama's speech last demonstrated that the president is well aware that the "day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here."
If you missed it, here is Obama's speech in its entirety.
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