Remarks of President Barack Obama
As Prepared for Delivery
Weekly Address
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Over the past two years, more than seven million Americans have lost their jobs, and factories and businesses across our country have been shuttered. In one way or another, we’ve all been touched by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
The difficult steps we’ve taken since January have helped to break our fall, and begin to get us back on our feet. Our economy is growing again. The flood of job loss we saw at the beginning of this year slowed to a relative (trickle) last month. These are good signs for the future, but little comfort to all of our neighbors who remain out of a job. And my solemn commitment is to work every day, in every way I can, to push this recovery forward and build a new foundation for our lasting growth and prosperity.
That’s why I announced some additional steps this week to spur private sector hiring. We’ll give an added boost to small businesses across our nation through additional tax cuts and access to lending they (desperately) need to grow. We’ll rebuild more of our (vital infrastructure) and promote advanced manufacturing in clean energy to put Americans to work doing the work we need done. And I have called for the extension of unemployment insurance and health benefits to help those who have lost their jobs weather these storms until we reach that brighter day.
But even as we dig our way out of this deep hole, it’s important that we address the (irresponsibility) and (recklessness) that got us into this mess in the first place.
Some of it was the result of an era of easy credit, when millions of Americans borrowed beyond their means, bought homes they couldn’t afford, and assumed that housing prices would always rise and the day of reckoning would never come.
But much of it was due to the irresponsibility of large financial institutions on Wall Street that gambled on risky loans and complex financial products, seeking short-term profits and big bonuses with little regard for long-term (consequences). It was, as some have put it, risk management without the management. And their actions, in the absence of strong oversight, intensified the cycle of bubble-and-bust and led to a financial crisis that threatened to bring down the entire economy.
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