Day 52: Obama Says Not To Waste Stimulus

By: Brian Montopoli
Topics: White House

(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

On his fifty-second day in office, President Obama delivered a warning to those who will be implementing stimulus funds: "If we see money being misspent, we're going to put a stop to it, and we will call it out and we will publicize it."

The president also met with China's top diplomat, whom he told that "the promotion of human rights is an essential aspect of U.S. global foreign policy," according to the White House. The pair also discussed the financial crisis, Darfur, North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the state of the U.S.-China relationship.

He also met with business leaders, whom he told he backs a free-market-based economic system. The government, he said, needs to "right the ship," after which the country can "let private enterprise do its magic."

And he spoke at the dedication of Abraham Lincoln Hall at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.

"This is the truth that Lincoln understood -- that pragmatism must serve a common purpose, a higher purpose," he said. "That's the legacy that we inherit. And that, in the end, is how government of the people, and by the people, and for the people, will endure in our time."