Word: speech
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...Obama tried to make that point in his speech. "There are those who claim we have to choose between paying down our deficits on the one hand, and investing in job creation and economic growth on the other," he said. "This is a false choice." But as pointed as the speech was at times, it was also notable for what it did not say. Obama didn't call his new package of government spending a stimulus, which it clearly was. He didn't say how much it would cost. He gave few details of how it would be paid...
...speech was certainly very general," says Rob Puentes, an expert on infrastructure investment at Brookings, who was still trying to work out on Tuesday afternoon what Obama had meant hours earlier when he called for a "boost in investment in the nation's infrastructure...
...former economic adviser to John McCain's presidential campaign, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was recently invited to the White House for a jobs summit, is more aghast at the vagueness of the speech. "He did not give one dollar figure," says Holtz-Eakin. "He did not explain how anything is being paid...
...briefing call with reporters before the speech, a senior Administration official said that even though the unspent and returned TARP funds could not be used directly to fund the new stimulus efforts, they still created an environment in which there was "more fiscal room" for further spending. "There's other offsets over a 10-year period that one could consider as well," the official said, without providing any specifics...
...doubt come out over the next few weeks and months as Congress attempts to pass a series of large spending bills, which could include a number of the programs that Obama announced. "One of the central goals of this Administration is restoring fiscal responsibility," he said in his speech. But as long as the economy continues in its fragile state, that goal will remain secondary to the more immediate task at hand. Which means that Obama's calls for government spending will keep being met by Republican cries of hypocrisy...