Obama: U.S. Will Survive 'Day of Reckoning'

Updated from Tuesday, Feb. 24

By Jennifer Loven

WASHINGTON -- Standing before the nation on a "day of reckoning," President Barack Obama summoned politicians and public alike to forge a path out of the worst economic disaster in a quarter-century by embracing shared sacrifice and costly new endeavors to improve health care, schools and the environment.

"The time to take charge of our future is here," Obama declared Tuesday night in his first address to a joint session of Congress, watched by millions of worried Americans on television and the Internet.

Adding words of reassurance, he said, "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."

Obama's 52-minute speech was interrupted 61 times by applause.

To deal with the current economic crisis, deepening each day, the president said more money would be needed to rescue troubled banks beyond the $700 billion already committed last year. He said he knows that bailout billions for banks are unpopular -- "I promise you, I get it," he said -- but he also insisted it was the only way to get credit moving again to households and businesses, the lifeblood of the American economy.

Along with aid for banks, he also called on Congress to move quickly on legislation to overhaul regulations on the nation's financial markets.

"I ask this Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary," Obama said. "Because we cannot consign our nation to an open-ended recession."

With U.S. automakers struggling for survival, Obama also said he would allow neither their demise nor "their own bad practices" to be rewarded. "I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it," he said.

Thinking longer-term, Obama said in a speech lacking many specifics that both political parties must give up favored programs while uniting behind his campaign promises to help the millions without health insurance, build better schools and move the nation to more-efficient fuel use. He skipped the traditional litany of new programs common in such speeches but spoke on broad generalities about goals and themes that formed the backbone of his presidential campaign.

Just five weeks after his inauguration, Obama addressed an ebullient Democratic congressional majority and an embattled but reinvigorated GOP minority as well as anxious viewers at home. Despite the nation's economic worries and the failure so far of his effort to draw support for his plans from more than a handful of Republican lawmakers, Obama enjoys strong approval ratings across the nation.

Bobby Jindal, Louisiana's young, charismatic governor who is considered a potential 2012 presidential candidate, was chosen to deliver the televised GOP response. He exhorted fellow Republicans to be Obama's "strongest partners" when they agree with him. But he signaled that won't happen much, calling the $787 billion stimulus package "irresponsible."

"The way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians," Jindal said. "Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need?"

Still, mindful of the public's optimism about Obama's leadership, Jindal, as well as other Republicans, took care to focus criticism primarily on Congress' Democratic leaders, not on the president.

The central argument of his speech was that his still-unfolding economic revival plan has room for -- even demands -- a broader agenda. This is the big chore of his young presidency, and Obama's hope was that he can begin to persuade the country that the longer-term items on his presidential agenda are as important to the nation's economic well-being as unchoking credit and turning around unemployment numbers.

"The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care, the schools that aren't preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit," Obama said.

He urged lawmakers to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change by creating a cap-and-trade system of limits and pollution allowances. And he said the budget he is sending to Congress on Thursday will call for $15 billion a year in federal spending to spur development of environmentally friendly but so far cost-ineffective energy sources such as wind and solar, biofuels, clean coal and more fuel-efficient vehicles.

He said his budget request also will create new incentives for teacher performance and support for innovative education programs. He asked every American to commit to completing a year or more of higher education or career training.