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 Six Weeks and Six Days - White House Press Briefing by Robert Gibbs 3/9/09 — Monday, March 09, 2009 —  Q Back to Warren Buffett for a second. Understanding what you said and what he said about part of the confusion that people feel is the function of 535 members in Congress, and so on. He did say the President has the most authoritative voice. Does the President bear any responsibility for what Warren Buffett described as confusion and fear --MR. GIBBS: Well, look, I think that Mr. Buffett, and again I -- I think Mr. Buffett is talking about a period of time that has spanned now two administrations, that has watched different policy proposals to deal with different things. But I think Mr. Buffett would agree that -- and in fact, said in not so many words -- but that this problem isn't going to be fixed overnight. We didn't get here -- we didn't get here overnight; the problems that we dealt with starting in sort of early to mid-September of last year didn't start last summer. Many of those problems started years ago. Many of the systemic problems that were rooted in what ultimately failed took place a while ago. Q In terms of communicating a solution or even a sense that we have it well in hand, can you -- any room for improvement there? MR. GIBBS: Well, I think obviously the President would always say there's room for improvement; that the President believes that we have to continue to give people a realistic sense of where this economy is, but also talk about, as he did at the speech to Congress, that we've got to make sure people understand that brighter days are ahead. But I think there's a sense from certain people that -- of either chagrin or surprise -- that in one day less than seven weeks all of the problems that took many years to take hold haven't necessarily been solved. I think if you look -- if you realistically look at what this administration has done in that six weeks and six days, you'll see putting in place a recovery and reinvestment plan that we think will create jobs, put money in taxpayers' pockets, and get money directly out to the states to deal with crushing budget cuts that will impact those that can least afford it; a home foreclosure plan that will begin to address millions of people that have played by the rules, but should they get into further economic trouble, might have problems making their mortgage payment and watch a home foreclosure crisis spread; put in place the building blocks of a financial stability plan through a capital investment program, business and lending initiative that the Secretary announced just last week. And obviously we've started and will continue in Congress and through the G20 to ensure that a regulatory structure is in place to ensure these types of problems never happen again. We've made tremendous progress in getting the pillars, as the President said last week, in place to deal with our economic problems. The recovery will take quite some time, as it's taken quite some time to get into these problems. But the President remains focused each and every day in ensuring that we take the steps to make those decisions and get the economy moving again. Economy | Obama Administration | Press Briefing | Robert Gibbs | Wall Street | White House Press Corps Labels: Economy, Obama Administration, Press Briefing, Robert Gibbs, Wall Street, White House Press Corps
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 11:20 PM
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