WASHINGTON, Feb 25 (AFP): US President Barack Obama announced yesterday a new lending fund in a mammoth effort to help small businesses and consumers in a bid to stimulate a recession-hit economy.
"We are creating a new lending fund that represents the largest effort ever to help provide auto loans, college loans, and small business loans to the consumers and entrepreneurs who keep this economy running," Obama told a joint session of Congress.
Obama said that his administration was concerned that if it did not re-start lending, "our recovery will be choked off before it even begins.
"You see, the flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy. The ability to get a loan is how you finance the purchase of everything from a home to a car to a college education; how stores stock their shelves, farms buy equipment, and businesses make payroll."
He noted that credit had stopped flowing the way it should following financial turmoil stemming from a home mortgage crisis.
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama vowed yesterday that America would emerge from its economic torment stronger than ever, but declared a "day of reckoning" for a reckless get-rich-quick age of profligate spending.
In his debut address to a joint session of Congress, Obama demanded national sacrifice and responsibility in a calculated show of confidence, meant to steady a shaken nation and revive its moribund economy.
"Tonight, I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," Obama said, after sparking riotous cheers from lawmakers.
In a blizzard of proposals, programmes and reforms, the president demanded an overhaul of financial regulation and warned he may need more than the 700 billion dollars already earmarked to save the debt-riddled finance industry. He announced the formation of a government lending plan to thaw frozen credit markets and fund auto and home purchases.
He called on Congress to immediately overhaul healthcare and to send him a bill forming a cap-and-trade system to combat global warming.
Turning to a global stage, Obama, declared a new era of US diplomatic engagement had begun, told lawmakers to fund an expansion in US armed forces and promised "swift and certain justice" for captured terrorists.
Making history as the first black president to address Congress, Obama warned the price for recovery would be a new economy in which people spent within their means, and ditched a chase for easy wealth and quick profits.
