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For Bush, last 100 days to feature ‘no letting up’
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| President Bush pauses as he speaks with the G7 Finance Ministers in the Rose Garden of the White House Saturday in Washington. Listening at back are Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde. |
By Ben Feller
WASHINGTON – So how will it end?
President Bush is down to his final 100 days in office as of Sunday. Don’t expect a quiet fade into the Texas night.
The bleakest economic downturn in decades has changed the dynamic drastically, keeping Bush and his financial team in activist mode to the end.
While the powerful heads of the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve keep making radical moves, no one elected them. Bush is the one charged with reassuring the nation that an abysmal economic period will give way to better days, even if he is long gone from Washington by the time that happens.
The president will keep speaking about the economy, calling world leaders about it, meeting with business owners, perhaps attending an overseas summit. His final act will be overseeing the $700 billion buyout of devalued assets from banks, in hopes that credit will start flowing to an anxious, weary country.
“It looks like I’m going to have a lot of work to do between today and when the new president takes office,” Bush said this past week.
The scope of the credit crisis is so vast that it will likely overshadow anything else Bush does before he leaves office on Jan. 20.
“We will stand together in addressing this threat to our prosperity. We will do what it takes to resolve this crisis. And the world’s economy will emerge stronger as a result,” the president said Saturday in the Rose Garden after meeting with finance ministers from the world’s economic powers.
People are panicked about their retirement accounts and the markets are reeling. Behind the daily drumbeat of bleak economic news, Bush leaves behind a national debt that has soared from less than $6 trillion when he took office to more than $10 trillion now. That staggering bill will fall on future generations to pay.
President Bush is down to his final 100 days in office as of Sunday. Don’t expect a quiet fade into the Texas night.
The bleakest economic downturn in decades has changed the dynamic drastically, keeping Bush and his financial team in activist mode to the end.
While the powerful heads of the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve keep making radical moves, no one elected them. Bush is the one charged with reassuring the nation that an abysmal economic period will give way to better days, even if he is long gone from Washington by the time that happens.
The president will keep speaking about the economy, calling world leaders about it, meeting with business owners, perhaps attending an overseas summit. His final act will be overseeing the $700 billion buyout of devalued assets from banks, in hopes that credit will start flowing to an anxious, weary country.
“It looks like I’m going to have a lot of work to do between today and when the new president takes office,” Bush said this past week.
The scope of the credit crisis is so vast that it will likely overshadow anything else Bush does before he leaves office on Jan. 20.
“We will stand together in addressing this threat to our prosperity. We will do what it takes to resolve this crisis. And the world’s economy will emerge stronger as a result,” the president said Saturday in the Rose Garden after meeting with finance ministers from the world’s economic powers.
People are panicked about their retirement accounts and the markets are reeling. Behind the daily drumbeat of bleak economic news, Bush leaves behind a national debt that has soared from less than $6 trillion when he took office to more than $10 trillion now. That staggering bill will fall on future generations to pay.
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