100 Days and Counting
On his 100th day in office, President Barack Obama told America and the White House press corps, at his third prime-time press conference, that the challenges of the present require America “to lay a new foundation for growth, a foundation that will strengthen our economy and help us compete in the 21st century.”
He had made quite a bit of progress on that very day. Earlier, his fellow Democrats in the House and Senate gave him a 100-day present: a $3.4 trillion budget outline that embraces health-care reform. The budget legislation passed, however, without a single Republican in favor.
A few hours before that, the Commerce Department, while reporting that the economy had shrunk by 6.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009, said company inventories accounted for a large part of the decline, meaning that demand was outpacing supply. They also said consumer spending was better than expected in the quarter.
Also on April 29 the Fed announced that while the economy was continuing to shrink, “the pace of contraction appears to be somewhat slower” and household spending seemed to be stabilizing. At the same time, the Fed repeated its expectation that unemployment will continue to rise through the end of the year, by which time they hope the economy will be on a path to slow growth.
Watch all of Obama’s 100-day press conference, including some calming presidential advice on swine flu.
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