Three days after taking office as president, Barack Obama painted a doom-and-gloom picture for America’s economy unless the government acts quickly to create jobs by implementing his recovery plan. He outlined the plan in his first, and the nation’s first, weekly presidential address via online video.
“We begin this year and this administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action,” Obama said, hinting at the possibility of double-digit unemployment and young people forgoing college. He touted his American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan as the cure for what ails the nation economically.
The plan calls for spending on the energy, health care, education, transportation, security and technological fronts. Obama downplayed concerns about the massive spending proposed in the plan by promising transparency so Americans will be able to keep tabs on the spending.
“We’ll launch an unprecedented effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government,” he said, “and every American will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars by going to a new Web site called recovery.gov.
The full text of the address is available on the White House blog, also a technological first.
As of now, there is no sign of a competing weekly address, video or otherwise, by the minority at the Republican National Committee, House Republican Conference or Senate Republican Conference.
The GOP apparently did not heed the advice of its former e-campaign expert, Patrick Ruffini, to avoid “a needless round of stories about Republicans being behind in tactics and technology.”
UPDATE, 1/27: I missed the video that Republicans intended to be the response to Obama’s weekly address. The video, which challenged provisions of the Democrats’ proposed stimulus plan, actually led to criticism of Obama for not approving it as a video response on the White House’s YouTube channel. Here is the GOP video:
Categories: Producer's Picks, White House, Economy, Weekly Video Address
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