US President Barack Obama has said his administration is confronting the economic crisis on all fronts and seeing signs of progress.
‘We will recover from this recession. But it will take time, it will take patience,’ he said in the opening statement of his second prime time White House news conference since he took office on 20 January.
Brushing aside suggestions the G20 summit in London next month would find him at odds with Europeans, Mr Obama said he expected leaders to share common goals of boosting growth and updating outdated financial regulations while avoiding trade protectionism.
Mr Obama said there were signs his policy changes were ‘restoring confidence’ internationally in the US global leadership.
He also made clear that he was serious about his recent overtures of a fresh start in relations with Iran and said the status quo of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which he has promised strong US engagement, was ‘unsustainable’.
Focusing on the economy, Mr Obama said: 'We've put in place a comprehensive strategy designed to attack this crisis on all fronts. It's a strategy to create jobs, to help responsible homeowners, to restart lending, and to grow our economy over the long-term. And we are beginning to see signs of progress.’
The administration has recently cited glimmers of improvement in the devastated housing market, but most key economic indicators remain under extreme stress.
Mr Obama's high approval ratings have been tested amid a public backlash over payment of $165m in executive bonuses by American International Group after the insurance giant received $180bn in taxpayer bailout funds.
Mr Obama was forced to repeatedly condemn the AIG bonuses while trying to temper public outrage and fend off calls for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's resignation for his handling of the affair.
‘There was a lot of outrage and finger-pointing last week and much of it was understandable,’ Mr Obama said, adding that the time for ‘outsized rewards’ on Wall Street was past.
Mr Obama defended his budget blueprint, which opposition Republicans and even some fellow Democrats have criticised for being too costly.
Mr Obama said his budget, which will be taken up by congressional committees this week, would pave the way for broad economic growth ‘by moving from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest’.
Questions & Answers
President Obama encouraged people to submit their questions about the economy over the Internet and said he will answer some of them live on the White House website tomorrow.
'This is an experiment, but it's also an opportunity for me to look at a computer and get a snapshot of what Americans across the country care about,' Mr Obama said in a video message posted on the site.
The session will be a first for the White House, which has promised under President Obama to use technology to make government more accountable.
Participants will be able to ask their own questions via text and video and vote for those they would like to see answered the most.
Obama's staff used a similar 'community moderated' approach before he took office to compile a list of issues that Americans cared about the most. Topping that list was a request to legalise marijuana.
White House staff asked participants to be respectful of others' opinions and use inoffensive language.
Some of the questions submitted to Obama dealt with outsourcing, government bailouts of homeowners and the financial industry and the use of tax breaks in the stimulus package.
