WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama turns to cyberspace Thursday for an Internet town hall meeting, hoping to deepen support for his broad and expensive assault on economic hard times.
Heading into the novel session, Obama was buoyed by congressional Democrats' embrace of his key budget priorities Wednesday night, pointing the way for expansive legislation this year on health care, energy and education, even as they sought to hold down deficits.
Obama is pressing his tax and spending plan as essential to long-term economic recovery by revamping the country's crippling spending on health care and to putting the nation on a path toward energy independence in the midst of the worst economic downturn in decades and a financial crisis unmatched since the 1930s Great Depression.
The latest data released Thursday showed U.S. economy shrank at a 6.3 percent pace at the end of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century.
As part of the administration effort, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner returns to Congress on Thursday to detail plans for an extensive overhaul of financial regulations to increase oversight of such exotic instruments as credit default swaps that have been blamed for contributing to financial meltdown.
They played a prominent role in the credit crisis that broughtthe downfall of investment banking giant Lehman Brothers HoldingsInc. last year and pushed insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG) to the brink of collapse, forcing the government to provide more than $180 billion in support.
As the Internet town hall approached Thursday, the White House Web site had already logged more than 77,000 questions for the session that starts at about 11:30 a.m. EDT (1530 GMT).
After that, Obama will answer follow-up questions from a live audience of about 100 people in the White House East Room and citizens across the country who can watch the event online at http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/OpenForQuestions.
The president likely will use the session to explain his massive budget plan, a $3.6 version of which the House of RepresentativesBudget Committee approved over objections from Republicans who say it spends, taxes and borrows too much. Administration critics argued Obama would drive the country into unsustainable debt.
Both the House and Senate versions of the budget plan lack specifics for any of the administration's signature proposals. AndDemocrats decided to cut spending and exploding deficits below levels envisioned in the Obama plan. Administration officials and congressional leaders said any differences were modest.
"This budget will protect President Obama's priorities - education, energy, health care, middle class tax relief and cut the deficit in half," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said after the chief executive met privately in the Capitol with rank-and-file Democrats.
The regulatory program Geithner was presenting to Congress will also include a recommendation for creation of a systemic riskregulator, possibly at the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, to monitor risks to the entire system.
The plan also includes a measure that Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke discussed in Congress early this weekthat would give the administration expanded powers to take overmajor nonbank financial institutions like AIG or hedge funds that were nearing collapse.
The administration, pushing Congress to act quickly on its reform agenda, sent Congress a 61-page bill dealing with the expanded powers to seize control of nonbank institutions late Wednesday and the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee has indicated it could move on the measure as early as next week.
The outline of the regulatory reform was being unveiled a week before Obama was scheduled to meet officials and leaders of the Group of 20 major industrialized and developing countries in London to assess what needs to be done to deal with the global financial crisis.
The administration is pushing other nations to foll
By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer
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Obama turns to cyberspace for town hall session
Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 11:04 AM Posted by Current-News-Stories
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