Obama vows to pull US out of recession

President Barack Obama has told Americans that their best days were still ahead, as he attempted to lift the gloom surrounding the stagnant economy and inject more optimism into his own vision for the nation he has led for just 36 days.

Addressing a joint session of Congress televised on every major channel, he asserted that the nation would pull through the recession while building “a new foundation for lasting prosperity”.

“While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: we will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before,” said the president, who was given numerous standing ovations by both his fellow Democrats and Republicans.

“The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.”

Aware of criticism that he had sounded too pessimistic during his first few weeks office as he attempted to sell his $787 billion stimulus plan, the president struck a sunnier note, drawing comparisons with Ronald Reagan, whose up-beat confidence was credited with dragging the country out of the torpor of the post-Vietnam late 1970s.

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