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.
‘SECRETS’: While saying China would not attack during his presidency, Donald Trump declined to say how Washington would respond if Beijing were to take military action US President Donald Trump said that China would not take military action against Taiwan while he is president, as the Chinese leaders “know the consequences.” Trump made the statement during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes program that aired on Sunday, a few days after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea. “He [Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘we would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in the interview. However, he repeatedly declined to say exactly how Washington would respond in
WARFARE: All sectors of society should recognize, unite, and collectively resist and condemn Beijing’s cross-border suppression, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said The number of Taiwanese detained because of legal affairs by Chinese authorities has tripled this year, as Beijing intensified its intimidation and division of Taiwanese by combining lawfare and cognitive warfare, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) made the statement in response to questions by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Puma Shen (沈柏洋) about the government’s response to counter Chinese public opinion warfare, lawfare and psychological warfare. Shen said he is also being investigated by China for promoting “Taiwanese independence.” He was referring to a report published on Tuesday last week by China’s state-run Xinhua news agency,
‘ADDITIONAL CONDITION’: Taiwan will work with like-minded countries to protect its right to participate in next year’s meeting, the foreign ministry said The US will “continue to press China for security arrangements and protocols that safeguard all participants when attending APEC meetings in China,” a US Department of State spokesperson said yesterday, after Beijing suggested that members must adhere to its “one China principle” to participate. “The United States insists on the full and equal participation of all APEC member economies — including Taiwan — consistent with APEC’s guidelines, rules and established practice, as affirmed by China in its offer to host in 2026,” the unnamed spokesperson said in response to media queries about China putting a “one China” principle condition on Taiwan’s
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday that China using armed force against Taiwan could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, allowing the country to mobilize the Japanese armed forces under its security laws. Takaichi made the remarks during a parliamentary session yesterday while responding to a question about whether a "Taiwan contingency" involving a Chinese naval blockade would qualify as a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, according to a report by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. "If warships are used and other armed actions are involved, I believe this could constitute a survival- threatening
RSS