President Barack Obama Weekly Address Video, Photos 2-7-09

President Barack Obama

President Barack Obama delivered his weekly address on February 7, 2009 via radio and YouTube. See the video and recent photos of Obama duing the past week.

The President made note of the latest Labor Department statistics that are indicative of the worsening economic crisis; a reported 598,000 jobs were lost in January 2009, the most jobs lost in a month since 1974. This has pushed the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent, the highest since 1992. Overall, the country has seen the greatest job loss in 12 months since the government began keeping track of these statistics in 1939.

Despite the bad news, the President expressed optimism in light of the compromise reached in the U.S. Senate regarding the stimulus bill. “In the midst of our greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the American people were hoping that Congress would begin to confront the great challenges we face. That was, after all, what last November’s election was all about,” he said.

President Barack Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast, February 5, 2009
He went on to reiterate a longstanding theme of unity, “The American people know that our challenges are great. They don’t expect Democratic solutions or Republican solutions – they expect American solutions,” while stresses that the recovery plan is intended to “put Americans to work doing the work America needs done.” He asserted that the bill “will save or create more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, all across the country – 16,000 in Maine, nearly 80,000 in Indiana – almost all of them in the private sector, and all of them jobs that help us recover today, and prosper tomorrow.”

After much wrangling the compromise was reached last night.

The bipartisan deal was cut after two days of talks and would cut more than $100 billion from the $920 billion bill, dropping its cost to about $820 billion, if amendments added on the Senate floor are retained.

Most Republicans remained strongly opposed to the compromise bill, saying it was too costly and ineffective, and Democratic leaders were counting on just three GOP votes for the plan as of last night but hoped to expand the number before a final vote.

Moments after Reid announced the deal on the Senate floor, GOP lawmakers said that they will seek to delay a final vote through procedural objections, which could push debate to as late as Monday.

Senators worked late into last night on a time agreement to bring the bill to a vote. The pipeline was still clogged with amendments, many of them offered by conservative Republican senators, with little chance of passing. But Reid was determined to make sure the debate remained open and free-flowing, in keeping with the tone that President Obama urged.

Source: Bipartisan Deal Eases Way For Stimulus Bill in Senate

Here is the Weekly Address video. See also Weekly Address Transcript, February 7, 2009 via WhiteHouse.gov More Obama pictures below.

YouTube Link