Posted by Jed Lewison on Thu Feb 5, 2009 at 10:03 AM Pacific

The President Strikes Back

After enduring an unrelenting partisan assault from Republicans on the economic recovery plan, President Obama is fighting back, reminding the GOP that in November the American people rendered their judgment on the GOP's failed economic dogma. "Now is the time to move forward," he said, "not back."

Here's the transcript:

But these numbers that we're seeing are sending an unmistakable message -- and so are the American people.  The time for talk is over.  The time for action is now, because we know that if we do not act, a bad situation will become dramatically worse.  Crisis could turn into catastrophe for families and businesses across the country.  

And I refuse to let that happen.  We can't delay and we can't go back to the same worn-out ideas that led us here in the first place.  In the last few days, we've seen proposals arise from some in Congress that you may not have read but you'd be very familiar with because you've been hearing them for the last 10 years, maybe longer.  They're rooted in the idea that tax cuts alone can solve all our problems; that government doesn't have a role to play; that half-measures and tinkering are somehow enough; that we can afford to ignore our most fundamental economic challenges -- the crushing cost of health care, the inadequate state of so many of our schools, our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.

So let me be clear:  Those ideas have been tested, and they have failed.  They've taken us from surpluses to an annual deficit of over a trillion dollars, and they've brought our economy to a halt.  And that's precisely what the election we just had was all about.  The American people have rendered their judgment.  And now is the time to move forward, not back.