Washington, D.C. -- "President Barack Obama told Congress and the American people this evening, 'The day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.' He could not be more correct. He and Congress have already taken decisive steps to keep more people in their homes, bring stability and reform to the credit markets and banking industry, revive the U.S. economy and stop the hemorrhaging of jobs. 

Neil greets President Obama before his speech to the nation.

"The President called on us to confront these challenges, to take the steps required to bring fiscal stability as quickly as possible, and just as critically, to make the difficult choices that will be essential for our long term economic health: 

• Reforming the health care system to reduce costs and increase coverage;
• Making our country energy independent and creating a sustainable clean energy economy for the 21st century;
• Modernizing our education system to foster economic growth and competitiveness now and into the future. Ending the waste, fraud and abuse in our billions of dollars on contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan; and
• Bringing restraint and responsibility to the Pentagon budget.

"Tonight, we heard the Administration’s outline for a budget to cut the deficit in half by 2013, a budget that doesn’t rely on gimmicks to hide expenditures. We’ll receive the detailed budget request on Thursday, except for the Defense portion, and we’ll have that in April.

"We are trying to breathe life into a nearly dead economy and then prevent years of runaway Bush Administration spending from bankrupting the country.  It is a tough assignment.  We can do it, but it will demand that we put aside partisan games and work together.

"President Obama said, 'The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure.'

"This President has once again displayed a remarkable ability to inspire hope and rally the public to the challenge at hand.  The strength of his leadership is based not just on the American people’s belief in him, but on his belief in the American people."

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