President Obama Defends Big Budget

March 24. 2009

President Obama and his right hand budget man, U.S. Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, have been defending his administration’s budget and plans for the U.S. economy.

While, people believe Obama means well, they doubt the effectiveness of spending large sums of money, when the nation is already heavily in debt, due to a crisis created by the former administration.

FACTBOX: Obama defends actions, policies under pressure

Tue Mar 24, 2009 10:45pm EDT - (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama delivered some tough lines at a news conference on Tuesday that focused almost entirely on the economy and barely touched on foreign policy.

* Ahead of one of the toughest fights of his young presidency -- a forthcoming battle with Congress over his spending plans -- Obama said he expected changes would be made, but added sharply: "We never expected, when we printed out our budget, that they would simply Xerox it and vote on it. We assume that it has to go through the legislative process."

He then assailed those who would criticize the budget for spending too much, adding: "We haven't seen an alternative budget."

* Obama got a bit testy when pressed on why he had waited to express outrage about bonus payments given to bailed-out insurance giant AIG, telling a reporter: "It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak."…

http://www.reuters.com