Obama to address the road ahead
TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: President Obama today discusses the economy in a speech at Georgetown University. We’re expecting more in the way of a government status update than any presidential pep talk. Here’s Marketplace’s Dan Grech.
Dan Grech: President Obama will tout signs of economic life, such as a spike in mortgage refinancing and a rise in loans to small businesses. He’ll also remind the country that further pain is on the horizon.
Christina Romer chairs Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors. She spoke this morning to NBC’s Today Show:
Christina Romer: We know we’ve got several more months of job loss, for example. We know that the numbers on GDP are almost surely going to be very bad for this quarter and next.
Consultant Peter Cohan says Obama’s walking a rhetorical tight rope:
Peter Cohan: He has to be simultaneously realistic and sensitive to the pain of people who are suffering. At the same time, he needs to avoid having Americans give up and panic and feel that there’s nothing that can be done.
With the speech, Obama wants to renew confidence in his efforts to stabilize the housing and credit markets and to improve regulation of banks.
I’m Dan Grech for Marketplace.
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