In December, I was at the Bruce Watkins Cultural Heritage Center and Museum for a town hall meeting. I met with and heard from many homeowners about mortgage and other housing difficulties. They also talked of their concerns about the broader economy in Kansas City and Missouri. During that week, I also spent time in Florida and California, where I heard similar concerns. And when I got back to Washington, I talked to people in a variety of industries; I asked them what their business was telling them about where the economy was headed. My travels, my discussions with industry leaders and a review of the economic data with the rest of the President’s economic team convinced me in mid-December that the economy had taken a sharp turn for the worse and the risks were to the downside going forward.
The President recognized the downturn early, and took decisive action. At the beginning of January, President Bush told the nation we were considering an economic stimulus package. Congressional leaders also saw the weakening economy and the need for action. The President directed me to work with Congress to craft legislation that would put cash in the hands of American consumers and help American businesses invest and create jobs. And the President directed me to get this job done quickly, because we needed to bolster both consumer spending and business investment to protect the health of our economy.
And today, we are seeing that our action couldn’t have been more timely. We didn’t wait for the twenty-twenty hindsight of economic data to confirm a slow economy, we knew it was happening. And because we didn’t wait, the bipartisan stimulus package the President and the Congress enacted is injecting dollars into the economy now, when it can make a real difference.
It was a pleasure to work in a bipartisan spirit with House and Senate lea...
