Day 53: Obama Says Economy Causing "Incredible Pain"

By: Brian Montopoli
Topics: White House

(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

On his fifty-third day in office, President Obama said the while the economy is causing families "incredible pain and hardship," the government is acting to help.

Echoing comments this morning by his top economic advisor, Larry Summers, the president also said, "If we are keeping focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy, all the outstanding companies, workers, all the innovation and dynamism in this economy, then we're going to get through this. And I'm very confident about that."

Also today, news broke that the Obama administration was abandoning the phrase "enemy combatant" in the context of the war on terror; in legal filings, the Justice Department said the term would no longer be used to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Below, check out Chip Reid's CBS Evening News report on the president's day.

Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is the senior political reporter at CBSNews.com.
Follow on Twitter »

3 Comments +

Add a Comment


by rowdy6680 March 14, 2009 6:15 PM EDT: WOW....Republicans can never stop complaining. Obama is just cleaning up GW's mess and doing what it is going to take to do so. Sure there were Dems in the past...way past that may have contributed to this BUT...GW had 8 years to fix it...and he sat on his hands...now Obama has to fix it. Do you realize that even Obama's raising taxes on the rich to 39+ % is nothing compared to the tax rate during Eisenhower, Reagan and some others? The tax rate on the richer population was as high as 91% in our distant past....but Repubs will still whine....oh well....you lose. Next time send up a Republican for election that perhaps people will want in office instead of someone running around in his Depends.; Reply to this comment


by clancy49 March 14, 2009 12:31 PM EDT: This is supposed to be painful! That's the plan. Get us down to our knees to be good economic slaves. It is a plan for the government to retake all our money and loan it back to us. It is Trickle Down Economy in the Democrat Style. Republican Trickle Down, Democrat Trickle down, same thing different name. It's all about taking away American spendable income, lowering our status, and destroying the working class so we are all economic third world slaves.; Reply to this comment