Obama defends budget as essential to recovery

President Obama said Tuesday "there are no quick fixes" to pull the economy out of recession, but he insisted the country will recover. In his second prime time news conference, Obama called on Americans to look to the future with a “renewed confidence that a better day will come.” “We will recover from this recession,” the president said.

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Obama pledges to cut deficit in half at fiscal summit

President Obama pledged Monday to cut the nation’s $1.3 trillion deficit in half by the end of his first term. He identified exploding health-care costs as the chief culprit behind rising federal deficits during a bipartisan “fiscal responsibility summit” convened to discuss ways to restore fiscal stability without deepening the recession. Meeting with the congressional leadership of both parties, as well as a range of business, academic, financial and labor leaders, Obama warned that the country cannot continue its current rate of deficit spending without facing dire economic consequences.

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After the Stimulus, Can Obama Tame the Deficit?

Barack Obama calls them the Propeller-Heads, the cheerful band of financial nerds he has charged with saving America’s economy. And on the Friday before Presidents’ Day weekend, they were ready to show him the latest piece of their rescue plan: the 2010 federal budget. Having just squeezed through Congress what may be the largest spending bill in history, the President now needed to do something that would make the stimulus fight look easy: show the country and the world that he was as serious about preventing waste as he was about promoting growth

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