Obama Courts Public Support for Economic Stimulus Plan

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• JIM LEHRER:

  President Obama pushed for an economic stimulus today on the road and on the air. He traveled to the Midwest and he planned a primetime news conference tonight. It came as the Senate stimulus bill cleared a crucial hurdle, 61-36, one more vote than needed. NewsHour congressional correspondent Kwame Holman has our lead story report.

• KWAME HOLMAN:

  The president chose Elkhart in northern Indiana to make his point that urgent action on the economy is the only option.

  BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States: Folks here in Elkhart and all across America need help right now. They can't afford to keep on waiting for folks in Washington to get this done.

• KWAME HOLMAN:

  In the past year, the Elkhart area's unemployment rate tripled from layoffs in the recreational vehicle industry. It now stands above 15 percent, the nation's highest.

  Mr. Obama acknowledged to his town hall audience the stimulus bill will not be a cure-all, but he insisted it will do some good.

• BARACK OBAMA:

  I'm not going to tell you that this bill is perfect. I mean, it's coming out of Washington. It's going through Congress.

  You know, look, it's not perfect, but it is the right size, it is the right scope, broadly speaking, it has the right priorities to create jobs that will jump-start our economy and transform this economy for the 21st century.

  I can't — I can't tell you with 100 percent certainty that every single item in this plan will work exactly as we hoped. But what I can tell you is — I can say with complete confidence that endless delay or paralysis in Washington in the face of this crisis will only bring deepening disaster. I can tell you that doing nothing is not an option.

• KWAME HOLMAN:

  But despite the applause, the audience had at least one skeptic. A woman asked why Americans should trust their new leader when some of his cabinet nominees could not be trusted to pay taxes.

• BARACK OBAMA:

  Look, the — and I think that this is a legitimate criticism that people have made, because you can't expect one set of folks to not pay their taxes when everybody else is paying theirs. So I think that's a legitimate concern.

  One of the things I've discovered is, if you're not going to appoint anybody who's ever made a mistake in your life, then you're not going to have anybody taking your jobs.

• KWAME HOLMAN:

  The president also answered Republican skeptics who complain too much of the bill has nothing to do with stimulus, including energy projects.

• BARACK OBAMA:

  Now, I'll be honest with you. Some of the critics of the plan have said that's pork. I don't understand their criticism.

  Their basic argument is, well, that's — you're trying to make policy instead of just doing short-term stimulus. Well, my whole attitude is, if we're going to spend billions of dollars to create jobs anyway, then why wouldn't we want to create jobs in things like clean energy that create a better economic future for us over the long term? That's just — that's common sense to me.