Washington - President Barack Obama launches an economic offensive this week, signing the newly passed $787bn stimulus package in Colorado, before moving to Arizona to tackle the home mortgage foreclosure crisis.
As he struggles to lift the country out of its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, Obama termed passage of the stimulus package a "major milestone on our road to recovery."
Of perhaps equal importance will be his effort to reverse the collapsing US housing market that triggered a financial crisis of still-unknown proportions.
The stimulus package, which found no Republican support in the House of Representatives and gained only three opposition votes to assure passage in the Senate, aims to save or create as many as 3.5 million jobs through massive government investment while boosting consumer spending through modest tax cuts.
The mortgage plan, its details still under wraps, marks a counter-offensive against the housing collapse that has seen millions of Americans default on mortgages and lose their homes. As that crisis rippled through the financial industry, lending seized up as banks and investment houses realised they were holding trillions of dollars in bad assets.
Under an emergency $700bn programme passed late last year, the former Bush administration used half of that fund to forestall a financial collapse. But the flow of credit did not ease and use of the money was highly criticised because it was poorly administered and allowed banks and investment houses to spend the money recklessly.
Time before economy will register
Obama is now working to leverage the second portion of the bailout money into a program that could result in $2 trillion in government and private sector cash infusions to help banks and investment houses clear away some of their so-called "toxic" holdings and thereby spur lending. The part of his plan to help homeowners facing foreclosure is designed not only as succor to the public but to boost confidence in the financial community.
Obama's senior White House adviser said on Sunday that Americans will soon see positive effects of the stimulus plan. Speaking on Fox television, David Axelrod said signs that the $787bn economic stimulus programme is working will be obvious as work begins on infrastructure and other programmes that are ready to begin around the country.
Yet, Axelrod warned, it's going to take time for the effects to register in employment statistics and the economy is likely to get even worse before it begins to rebound. He said he expects the rise of unemployment to be slowed by the bill's passage and implementation.
The president has been crisscrossing the country in recent days selling his plans to the public. Polls show his support among Americans running well above his nearly 53% victory margin in the November election, a fact that he has used effectively against Republican recalcitrance in Congress to support his economic stimulus plans.
By signing the stimulus bill into law on Tuesday in Denver, the Colorado capital, and detailing his mortgage rescue proposal the next day in Phoenix, Arizona, Obama continues taking his message directly to the American public. Both actions show he is pointedly sidestepping the partisanship still gripping Washington despite his efforts to soften the Republican opposition.
Speaking in his weekly radio and internet address, Obama said, "I will sign this legislation into law shortly, and we'll begin making the immediate investments necessary to put people back to work doing the work America needs done."
At the same time, he cautioned, "The problems that led us into this crisis are deep and widespread, and our response must be equal to the task."
Relentless critics
Conservatives in both houses have been relentless critics, arguing the $787bn stimulus measure is filled with wasteful spending and that greater tax cuts would be more effective in creating jobs.
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, in the Republicans' radio address on Saturday, contended Democrats settled "on a random dollar amount in the neighbourhood of $1 trillion and then set out to fill the bucket."
The legislation, among the costliest ever considered in Congress, provides billions of dollars to victims of the recession through expanded unemployment benefits, food stamps, medical care, job retraining and more.
Tens of billions are ticketed for financially strapped states to offset cuts they might otherwise have to make in aid to schools and local governments, and there is more than $48bn for transportation projects such as road and bridge construction, mass transit and high-speed rail.
Obama's campaign promise of tax breaks for middle and working-class Americans survived but was scaled back. To tamp down costs, several tax provisions were dropped or sharply cut back.
Final details included the drafting of precise language on trade. The House included a "Buy America" restriction forbidding the use of foreign steel and other products on infrastructure projects funded in the bill. Negotiators were largely going with a Senate version that is much less restrictive, saying the US would abide by its international trade commitments.
The approval caps an early period of accomplishment for the Democrats, who won control of the White House and expanded their majorities in Congress in last fall's elections.
Since taking office on January 20, the president has signed legislation extending government-financed health care to millions of lower-income children who lack it and a measure making it easier for workers to sue their employers for alleged job discrimination.
Obama and his wife, Michelle, were spending a long weekend in Chicago for their first real break since he became president on January 20. Aides say they have no public events.
- AP