Obama: Crisis ‘not as bad as we think’

Washington —- Confronting misgivings, even in his own party, President Barack Obama mounted a stout defense of his blueprint to overhaul the economy Thursday, declaring the national crisis is “not as bad as we think.”

Obama said Americans shouldn’t be whipsawed by bursts of either bad or good news and that he was “highly optimistic” about the long term.

His proposals for major health care, energy and education changes in economic hard times met skepticism from Democrats and Republicans, as senators questioned his budget outlook and the deficits it envisions in the next decade.

But Obama, speaking to top executives of the Business Roundtable, called for patience.

Richard Parsons, chairman of beleaguered Citigroup Inc., asked if Obama could offer some help in a national battle “between confidence and fear.”

“A smidgen of good news and suddenly everything is doing great. A little bit of bad news and ooohh , we’re down on the dumps,” Obama said.

“And I am obviously an object of this constantly varying assessment. I am the object in chief of this varying assessment.

“I don’t think things are ever as good as they say, or ever as bad as they say,” Obama added.

“Things two years ago were not as good as we thought because there were a lot of underlying weaknesses in the economy. They’re not as bad as we think they are now,” he said.

“And my long-term projections are highly optimistic, if we take care of some of these long-term structural problems.”

But in Congress, Obama’s budget plans were meeting resistance.

Sen. Kent Conrad, the chairman of the Budget Committee, called the track of future deficits “unsustainable” and singled out Obama’s proposal for adding $634 billion in health care spending over the next 10 years.

“Some of us have a real pause about the notion of putting substantially more money into the health care system when we’ve already got a bloated system,” said Conrad (D-N.D.).

Earlier Thursday, it was Obama warning against excessive spending as he addressed state officials in charge of allocating stimulus spending.

“If we see money being misspent, we’re going to put a stop to it,” Obama told representatives from 49 states, including Georgia.

Vice President Joe Biden, who is coordinating oversight of stimulus spending, opened the conference with an equally stern warning.

“Six months from now, if the verdict on this effort is that we’ve wasted the money, we built things that were unnecessary or we’ve done things that are legal but make no sense, then, folks, don’t look for any help from the federal government for a long while,” he said.

Biden said regulations would be announced today outlining what stimulus money cannot be spent on.

“A little hint,” he said. “No swimming pools in this money.”