WASHINGTON — Savoring his first big victory in Congress, President Barack Obama on Saturday celebrated the newly passed $787 billion economic-stimulus bill as a “major milestone on our road to recovery.”
Speaking in his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said, “I will sign this legislation into law shortly, and we’ll begin making the immediate investments necessary to put people back to work doing the work America needs done.”
At the same time, he cautioned: “This historic step won’t be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but rather the beginning. The problems that led us into this crisis are deep and widespread, and our response must be equal to the task.”
The bill passed Congress on Friday on votes split mostly along party lines, allowing Democratic leaders to deliver on their promise of clearing the legislation by mid-February.
“It will take time, and it will take effort, but working together, we will turn this crisis into opportunity and emerge from our painful present into a brighter future,” Obama said.
The president “now has a bill to sign that will create millions of good-paying jobs and help families and businesses stay afloat financially,” said Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat who was a leading architect of the measure.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, in the GOP radio address Saturday, contended Democrats settled “on a random dollar amount in the neighborhood of $1 trillion and then set out to fill the bucket.”
Obama, spending the weekend in Chicago, planned to fly back to Washington on Monday. His schedule for the week ahead includes trips to Denver on Tuesday to talk about his economic agenda and a visit to Phoenix on Wednesday to present a plan to fight foreclosures.
The legislation, among the costliest ever considered in Congress, provides billions of dollars to aid victims of the recession through jobless benefits, food stamps, medical care, job retraining and more.
