US President Barack Obama, in the first nationally televised evening news conference of his young presidency, demanded that lawmakers pass an US$800-billion-plus economic recovery plan or risk turning “a crisis into a catastrophe.”
The administration and Congress were both moving on parallel tracks yesterday toward a new round of heavy intervention to pull the US economy out of its recessionary spiral.
The US Treasury Department planned to announce a revamped bank rescue plan, one calling for a stepped-up role by private investors. And an US$838 billion stimulus bill was headed for expected Senate approval after clearing a critical procedural hurdle on Monday.
As part of his campaign to build public support for quick passage of his economic stimulus plan, he took his message to a nationwide audience watching his news conference live during television’s prime evening viewing hours.
In opening remarks, he said the federal government “is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life.”
“The plan is not perfect,” he said. “No plan is. I can’t tell you for sure that everything in this plan will work exactly as we hope, but I can tell you with complete confidence that a failure to act will only deepen this crisis as well as the pain felt by millions of Americans.”
The Treasury Department was ready to announce how it will spend the remaining US$350 billion of the US$700 billion financial rescue program started by the Bush administration last fall. The plan envisions big investors buying more than US$1 trillion in troubled assets from the banks, according to congressional staffers briefed on the plan on Monday night by Treasury officials.
Obama depicted his administration’s rewrite of the bank bailout effort as a template for “restoring market confidence.”
“The credit crisis is real, and it’s not over,” he said.
Obama issued a dire warning of the consequences if Congress fails to agree on a stimulus package.
“This is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill recession,” he said.
He cited Japan’s failure to take bold actions in time to reverse a recession that turned the 1990s into a “lost decade” with no economic growth. He said failure to act quickly “could turn a crisis into a catastrophe.”
Obama said the US could well be in better shape by next year, as measured by increased hiring, lending, home values and other factors.
He said bringing politicians of both parties behind the task of saving the economy was “the test facing the United States of America in this winter of our hardship.” But he also said bipartisanship has its limits.
“What I won’t do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place,” he said.
As for the economic stimulus bill in Congress, Democratic Senate leaders were able to rally the votes needed to clear a procedural barrier on Monday to open the way toward final passage yesterday.
CHAOS: Iranians took to the streets playing celebratory music after reports of Khamenei’s death on Saturday, while mourners also gathered in Tehran yesterday Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a major attack on Iran launched by Israel and the US, throwing the future of the Islamic republic into doubt and raising the risk of regional instability. Iranian state television and the state-run IRNA news agency announced the 86-year-old’s death early yesterday. US President Donald Trump said it gave Iranians their “greatest chance” to “take back” their country. The announcements came after a joint US and Israeli aerial bombardment that targeted Iranian military and governmental sites. Trump said the “heavy and pinpoint bombing” would continue through the week or as long
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said that it had confirmed on Saturday night with its liquefied natural gas (LNG) and crude oil suppliers that shipments are proceeding as scheduled and that domestic supplies remain unaffected. The CPC yesterday announced the gasoline and diesel prices will rise by NT$0.2 and NT$0.4 per liter, respectively, starting Monday, citing Middle East tensions and blizzards in the eastern United States. CPC also iterated it has been reducing the proportion of crude oil imports from the Middle East and diversifying its supply sources in the past few years in response to geopolitical risks, expanding
STRAIT OF HORMUZ: In the case of a prolonged blockade by Iran, Taiwan would look to sources of LNG outside the Middle East, including Australia and the US Taiwan would not have to ration power due to a shortage of natural gas, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, after reports that the Strait of Hormuz was closed amid the conflict in the Middle East. The government has secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies for this month and contingency measures are in place if the conflict extends into next month, Kung told lawmakers. Saying that 25 percent of Taiwan’s natural gas supplies are from Qatar, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) asked about the situation in light of the conflict. There would be “no problems” with
RSS