Moving Forward

When President Obama and his Cabinet took office a year ago, they faced an array of historic challenges: an economy in freefall, job losses averaging almost 700,000 a month, a middle class under assault, two wars and badly frayed global alliances, and a staggering $1.3 trillion budget deficit.

Faced with these unparalleled challenges, Obama and his Cabinet went to work. They’re attempting to rescue our country from a potential second Great Depression. Our economy needs to be rebuild, so that businesses can thrive and middle class families will be more secure. The ultimate goal is to restore America’s leadership in the world, as our government grapples with the global challenges of the 21st Century.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research this recession began in December 2007. There are 7 million fewer jobs and many Americans are enduring extreme hardships on a daily basis. Fortunately, we’re no longer seeing the severe deterioration in the job market that we saw last January.  According to the Congressional Budget Office the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,”  has already created and saved up to 2 million jobs.

Small businesses have continued to find it difficult to get the loans they need to start up or grow.  Obama wants to increase the guarantees for Small Business Administration backed loans, and has asked his Treasury Secretary to make plans to transfer the remaining TARP funds to alleviate the difficulty, that small businesses are having getting loans.

Obama pointed out: “And when we walked through these doors last year, our first and most urgent task was to rescue our economy, to give immediate relief. These steps have saved or created about two million jobs so far. But more than seven million have been lost as a consequence of this recession, an epidemic that demands our relentless and sustained response.”