Obama's call of college for all: Could it be done?

In his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, President Barack Obama called for every American to pursue some form of education beyond high school.

It's an ambitious goal — some might say impossible. Currently, only two of every five American adults have a two- or four-year college degree. Millions of Americans struggle even to complete high school, with one in four dropping out. And even a high school degree is no guarantee a student is ready for college.

Particularly alarming are the college rates for low-income and minority students. One recent study reported more than 90 percent of low-income teens said they planned to go to college — but only half actually enroll.

Those who do enroll are substantially less likely than others to finish their degree. If they borrowed money for college and don't graduate, they may be worse off than if they hadn't even started college.

The Associated Press asked six experts — from the worlds of policy, philanthropy, and some who work directly with struggling students — to answer the same two questions.

Is the president's goal realistic? And what would it take to attain it? Here are their responses.

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Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust, an advocacy group for children, particularly poor and minority children:

Absolutely! Just as those GIs stepped up to the challenges of college, today's young people will, too. But we have work to do.

First, we must get serious about high schools. Instead of preparing some for college and others for the jailhouse, we need to help high schools prepare every student for college.

Second, we have to dramatically improve results for low-income and minority students, now more than half of our youth. Increasing their success is the only way to ensure our national success.

Finally, colleges need to accept some responsibility for improving graduation rates. (See collegeresults.org for information on any college.) That includes holding costs down, and focusing not just on getting students in the door, but out with degrees. Yes, students need to work harder. But what colleges do matters a lot.

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Richard Vedder, Ohio University professor and member of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education assembled by former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings:

Not everyone can or should go to college. Given the dubious quality of our secondary schools as well as limited cognitive skills and motivation, many students are incapable of college-level work. Fulfillment of President Obama's goal would lead to many students failing, resources being squandered and the quality of postsecondary education being diluted.

I think it is sheer fantasy to believe we will lead the world in the percent of young adults with college degrees by 2020. More generally, the president's approach is the equivalent of dropping dollars out of airplanes over student homes and college campuses. That will not change colleges' behavior to make them less arrogant and elite, and more affordable, efficient and accountable.

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Nicole Hurd, executive director of the National College Advising Corps, which places recent college graduates in low-income schools to work as college guidance counselors:

All students are capable of continuing their education beyond high school. And while there are no easy answers, one way to open the door wider is to demonstrate to our young people that college is possible.

No one can do this better than recent college graduates. There is something powerful about a 23-year-old telling a high school student that "I went to college and if I can do it, you can, too." Or "My family was worried about the cost of college, but the aid is out there. Let's sit down and fill out your FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid)." Or "If you want to go to college and get a good job, you need to take hard classes and do your best."

Many of the barriers to higher education, whether financial, social, or cultural, can be overcome through this kind of mentoring and advising. In calling high-school students to college, President Obama is calling college students to service. Just imagine if 500 recent graduates served in our public high schools. Such a group could mentor 150,000 low-income and first-generation students — and could help thousands enroll in college who might not otherwise have found their way. While this kind of service isn't the only solution, it could go a long way.

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Eduardo J. Marti, president of Queensborough Community College in New York City:

President Obama's call for higher education for all Americans is doable.

The United States began building higher education capacity in 1947, when the Truman Commission established the concept of universal access to higher education and created open admissions community colleges. The 1965 Higher Education Act established financial aid. These two actions resulted in a post-secondary education system that guarantees access to all. No other country has this infrastructure.

All Americans, young or old, can use community colleges to upgrade their skills or obtain a degree. This existing system can be used to retrain displaced workers for better jobs and it can be used to prepare the leaders of tomorrow. We must make America competitive again.

We must also hold our community colleges accountable by developing strenuous metrics of excellence. The national Achieving the Dream Project is studying innovative approaches in 82 colleges and we can use those results to measure our success. The shattered dreams and wasted fiscal resources that result from low graduation rates must be stopped.

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Gaston Caperton, former governor of West Virginia and president of the College Board, which works to connect students to college and runs the SAT and AP exam programs:

Not only is the president's goal realistic, achieving it is also vital to the future economic and social well-being of our society. Among the most important steps to attain it are:

_An earlier start to schooling, especially for youngsters from low-income families. Greater access to and participation in preschool programs, such as Head Start, would help put many, many more young people on the path to college.

_Access to more rigorous courses in middle and high school, taught by teachers with strong training and access to sustained professional development.

_Better strategies for making college affordable, such as early college savings plans for all students, including plans that are subsidized by the government for low-income families.

_Adult education programs that make it easier to return to college, through online courses or community colleges.

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Jamie P. Merisotis, president of the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation, which works to expand access to higher education:

President Obama's goal is challenging, but it's certainly realistic. At Lumina Foundation, our own goal is to increase Americans' attainment of high-quality degrees from its current 39 percent rate to 60 percent by 2025.

We know that our goal is ambitious. Fortunately, there are steps that can be taken — by educators, policy makers and the public — to help realize BOTH goals.

First, we must ensure that students truly prepare themselves for college success: academically, financially and socially. Second, higher education institutions must direct their full energies toward the success (not just the enrollment) of students — especially low-income and minority students. Finally, we must encourage efforts that improve efficiency and productivity on the nation's campuses, so more students are properly saved

Obama's budget: huge ambitions, huge obstacles

WASHINGTON – Breathtaking in its scope and ambition, President Barack Obama's agenda for the economy, health care and energy now goes to a Congress unaccustomed to resolving knotty issues and buffeted by powerful interests that oppose parts of his plan.

Perhaps the only things as high as Obama's goals are the hurdles they must clear.

While tackling the economic crisis, he is asking Congress to enact contentious measures that have been debated, but not decided, in calmer times: cut subsidies for big farms; combat global warming with a pollution tax on industries; raise taxes on the wealthy; make big changes to health care, including lower reimbursements for Medicare and Medicaid treatments and prescription drugs.

Standing alone, any one of these proposals would trigger a brawl in Congress and fierce debates outside Washington. Obama wants the proposals done largely in concert, as an interrelated plan to undo major elements of Ronald Reagan's conservative movement.

Obama outlined the approach in a budget proposal Thursday, a sprawling road map that will require several hard-fought pieces of legislation.

He launched his campaign for the package Saturday with a fiery, populist radio and Internet address that depicted his critics as champions of "the interests of powerful lobbyists" and "the wealthiest few."

"I realize that passing this budget won't be easy," the president said, because it "represents a threat to the status quo in Washington."

"They're gearing up for a fight," he said. "So am I."

If his rhetoric was tough, the challenges he faces are downright daunting. The economy contracted by a stunning 6.2 percent in the final three months of 2008, its worst showing in a quarter-century. Obama says the crisis calls for gutsy actions, and many groups feel he has delivered.

"We're struck with how bold and courageous a budget it is," said James Horney of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which supports the president. "There are a whole lot of things that are going to be extremely difficult because there are very powerful vested interests out there that will fight them."

Obama is not simply proposing a budget that assumes a jaw-dropping deficit of $1.75 trillion this year, a quadruple increase from the year before. He's trying to redirect strong currents in American society.

The wealthiest 5 percent would pay a whopping $1 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade, while most others would get tax cuts. Industries would buy and trade permits to emit heat-trapping gases. Higher-income older people would pay more for Medicare benefits. Drug companies would receive smaller profits from the government. Banks would play a much smaller role in student loans.

Obama's climb is steep. Even with solid Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, he secured a $787 billion stimulus package only after accepting compromises that irked liberals but won the support of three Republican senators.

Not a single House Republican backed it. Judging from House GOP leaders' immediate condemnation of his budget blueprint, Obama can expect more of the same.

More troubling for him, however, are the divisions quickly emerging among Democratic, liberal and centrist constituencies that either backed the stimulus or stayed on the sidelines.

Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, the House Agriculture Committee chairman, criticized Obama's plan to cut direct payments to farms with sales exceeding $500,000 a year. "Now is not the time" to reopen a recently passed farm bill, he said.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, one of the stimulus bill's three Republican backers, said it is hard to see how Obama can meet his new deficit-reduction targets. He called Obama's chief energy proposal "entirely speculative" and urged the president "to forgo the tax increases" in the plan.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which also backed the stimulus bill, said Obama's budget blueprint "appears to move in exactly the wrong direction. More taxes, heavy-handed regulations, and command-and-control government will not hasten recovery... You don't build a house by blowing up its foundation."

That sounded like a jab at Obama, who said Thursday: "There are times when you can afford to redecorate your house, and there are times when you have to focus on rebuilding its foundation."

Some Washington veterans say that if anyone can overcome the hurdles, it is Obama.

"He has such enormous popularity right now," said Scott Lilly, who spent 31 years as a congressional aide before joining the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress.

Obama's political gifts are extraordinary, Lilly said. No one expects the president to get everything he's asking for, he said, "but I think he could get a big share of it."

Pushing his tax and health proposals through the Senate Finance Committee "is going to be one hell of a fight," Lilly said. The committee chairman, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, sometimes parts ways with Democratic leaders on important issues such as tax cuts and Medicare.

Stiff resistance awaits Obama at almost every turn.

"Class warfare" is how Republicans label his plan to raise taxes, starting in 2011, on households making more than $250,000 a year.

Some liberal-leaning foundations are unhappy about his proposed reduction in the tax deductibility of gifts to charity from wealthy people.

On health care, Obama wants to cut payments for Medicare and Medicaid, the government programs for the elderly, disabled and poor. Taking hits would be insurance companies, home health services, hospitals and drug manufacturers, all of which are powerful lobbies in Washington.

On energy, Obama wants to reduce greenhouse gases and raise money for clean-fuel technologies, such as solar and wind power, by auctioning off carbon pollution permits. The proposal, known as cap and trade, will lead to a bruising fight in Congress, which may be divided more by region than party.

William Kovacs, who oversees regulatory affairs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, says Obama is pushing too fast for such a dramatic policy change.

"Any support that there was for cap and trade from the business community," he said, was based on the assumption of "a long-term transition."

Some government veterans, however, think doubters are underestimating Americans' hunger for change. For example, every individual and institution is hurt by the ever-rising cost of health care, and many are ready to shake up the system to make it less expensive, said Bruce Reed, who oversaw domestic policy in Bill Clinton's White House.

"The country wants it, the economy needs it, businesses large and small know that they can't afford not to have it," said Reed, who now heads the Democratic Leadership Council, a center-left group. "I don't think a do-nothing caucus will get anywhere on health care."

Reed added, however: "Health care has always been the Middle East of domestic policy."

On energy, he said, "Congress ought to be able to pass a cap and trade bill. The rest of the industrialized world is doing emissions trading. A broad swath of American industry wants this question to be answered."

The president's agenda is vast and ambitious, Reed said, but the times call for it. After all, he said, "Obama didn't have the luxury of saying, 'I'll handle the economic crisis and then get back to you on the rest of America's future.'"

Most Iraqis Welcome Obama's Pullout Plan

It should come as no surprise that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been quick to endorse emerging plans to hasten the departure of U.S. forces from his country. Maliki, after all, had opposed the Bush Administration's decision to increase U.S. troop levels in the surge of 2007, and he had forced a reluctant Washington to accept a hard deadline for withdrawal in the Status of Forces Agreement adopted late last year. The growing abilities of the Iraqi security forces and the strengthening of his political position after last month's provincial elections have added to Maliki's confidence in managing without the Americans. "We welcome such a decision and support it," said Tahseen al-Shekhli, a spokesman for the Iraqi government, of Obama's intention to end the U.S. combat mission in Iraq by August 2010. "We consider this as a good-faith sign from the American Administration toward Iraq and Iraqis."

Word of the new White House drawdown plan, which Obama officially announced on Friday morning in a speech at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, was greeted with shrugs of contentment by most Iraqi political figures, largely because the Obama plan appears to be in step with what Iraqis had expected as a result of the Status of Forces Agreement signed by the Maliki government and the Bush Administration last December. That agreement requires most U.S. combat troops to be off the streets of Iraq by this summer and all U.S. troops to have left the country by 2011. (See pictures of Basra's return to normality.)

The most powerful political factions in Iraq would prefer to see U.S. forces leave sooner rather than later. Maliki's Shi'ite-dominated government and security forces have faced down their biggest foe, the Mahdi Army militia of Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. And Sadr's movement, which remains a political force in Iraq, was the first of the Shi'ite groups to agitate for a U.S. withdrawal. Only two camps in Iraq remain uneasy about seeing U.S. troops move offstage over the next 18 months - the minority Sunnis, who remain fearful of a revival of sectarian violence against them, and the commanders of the Iraqi security forces, who are anxious that U.S. logistical support and equipment may dry up as the U.S. draws down.

"It's really necessary for the American troops to remain now," said Yousef Aboud Ahmed, a Sunni volunteer fighter with a militia supported by U.S. forces in the Baghdad neighborhood of Adhamiya. "If we had a nonsectarian government in power, then yes, it would be a good idea for the American forces to go. They should go one day. But not in this situation."

For some U.S. soldiers in Iraq, however, the prospect of leaving sooner rather than later within the established withdrawal timeline is welcome. "Good," said Army Captain Matt van Stavern, whose unit is serving in Mosul, where U.S. and Iraqi security forces continue to battle insurgents who've remained active in the city for the past year despite an overall drop in violence across the country. "My boys are ready to go home. And the Iraqi people will be ready."

Obama health plan opens tough negotiation

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's prescription for the nation's ailing health care system comes with Medicare cuts and tax hikes — usually poison pills that doom any overhaul effort in Congress.

But the budget Obama proposed Thursday is not a finished blueprint for overhauling health care. Rather it's the opening bid in a tough negotiation. Anybody who's been in a bargaining session knows you never end up with your opening bid.

Obama is asking Congress: If you're going to cover an estimated 48 million uninsured Americans in the world's costliest medical system, how do you pay for it?

Obama's plan would set aside $634 billion over 10 years in a major effort to cover all Americans — a goal that could cost more than $1 trillion. Half the money would come from tax increases on upper-income earners; the other half from cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Private insurance plans serving Medicare seniors would take the biggest hit, but hospitals, drug companies and home health agencies also face cuts.

Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats are sure to disagree with Obama's specifics, but they may quietly applaud his determination to pay for health care reform, instead of adding to the deficit.

"This is a serious effort to get the process moving," said Mark McClellan, a doctor and health economist who ran Medicare for former President George W. Bush. "The specific financing proposals are going to have a very tough time."

Obama's approach is a conscious departure from the path former President Bill Clinton took in the 1990s. Clinton's 1,300-page health care bill tried to answer every question and ultimately went nowhere. Obama is asking Congress to fill in the blanks.

"He's outlining these cuts as examples of places where savings can be accrued," said Christine Ferguson, a health policy professor at George Washington University. "You put those on the table, and if people want to have this discussion, they have to propose alternatives."

Whether that dialogue succeeds depends not just on Obama, but on Congress and interest groups representing insurers and doctors, hospitals and drug companies, consumers and small business.

Clinton's top priority was to get everybody covered quickly. Obama has framed the problem differently, focusing on how to slow rising costs, so that everybody can eventually be covered.

"What the president is doing is bold, but it's not overreaching," said economist Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute research center. "The administration is coming to grips with the reality that this will cost a lot of money, and it's committed to paying for it."

The tricky part is in the details.

For example, more than half of Obama's spending cuts would come from Medicare managed care plans. The private plans cost the government 14 percent more on average than care for seniors in traditional Medicare. That translates into lower out-of-pocket costs for seniors, who in a bad economy have been flocking to the plans, increasing enrollment to about 10 million.

"People are flooding into the program," said Dan Mendelson, president of Avalere Health, an information company serving government and the health care industry. "I don't think cuts of this magnitude ultimately are going to be palatable to Congress."

Obama would replace the current payments with a competitive bidding system estimated to save $177 billion over 10 years. That sent insurance company shares skidding Thursday on Wall Street. But some market analysts said there may be a silver lining: While competitive bidding could decrease profit margins, it might generate higher revenues for insurers if seniors keep signing up.

America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry trade group, wasn't ready to leave the bargaining table.

While warning that Obama's cuts would "jeopardize the health security" of seniors, the group's president, Karen Ignagni, said insurers "are committed to doing our share" to expand coverage.

Obama vows to lead US from dire 'day of reckoning'

WASHINGTON – Standing before the nation on a "day of reckoning," President Barack Obama summoned politicians and public alike Tuesday night to forge a path out of the worst economic disaster in a quarter-century by embracing shared sacrifice and costly new endeavors to improve health care, schools and the environment.

"The time to take charge of our future is here," Obama declared in his first address to a joint session of Congress, watched by millions of worried Americans on television and the Internet.

Adding words of reassurance, he said, "Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."

Obama had to wade his way into a chamber packed with lawmakers eager to welcome the nation's first black president into a Capitol built by slaves. The House gallery included a special section hosted by first lady Michelle Obama, where guests served as living symbols of the president's goals. Cramming the floor was virtually the entire leadership of the federal government, including Supreme Court justices, led by Ruth Bader Ginsberg, back on the bench only this week after cancer surgery, and all but one Cabinet member, held away in case disaster struck. Obama's 52-minute speech was interrupted 61 times by applause.

To deal with the current economic crisis, deepening each day, the president said more money would be needed to rescue troubled banks beyond the $700 billion already committed last year. He said he knows that bailout billions for banks are unpopular — "I promise you, I get it," he said — but he also insisted it was the only way to get credit moving again to households and businesses, the lifeblood of the American economy.

Along with aid for banks, he also called on Congress to move quickly on legislation to overhaul regulations on the nation's financial markets.

"I ask this Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary," Obama said. "Because we cannot consign our nation to an open-ended recession."

With U.S. automakers struggling for survival, Obama also said he would allow neither their demise nor "their own bad practices" to be rewarded. "I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it," he said.

Thinking longer-term, Obama said in a speech lacking many specifics that both political parties must give up favored programs while uniting behind his campaign promises to help the millions without health insurance, build better schools and move the nation to more-efficient fuel use. He skipped the traditional litany of new programs common in such speeches but spoke on broad generalities about goals and themes that formed the backbone of his presidential campaign.

Just five weeks after his inauguration, Obama addressed an ebullient Democratic congressional majority and an embattled but reinvigorated GOP minority as well as anxious viewers at home. Despite the nation's economic worries and the failure so far of his effort to draw support for his plans from more than a handful of Republican lawmakers, Obama enjoys strong approval ratings across the nation.

Bobby Jindal, Louisiana's young, charismatic governor who is considered a potential 2012 presidential candidate, was chosen to deliver the televised GOP response. He exhorted fellow Republicans to be Obama's "strongest partners" when they agree with him. But he signaled that won't happen much, calling the $787 billion stimulus package "irresponsible."

"The way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians," Jindal said. "Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need?"

Still, mindful of the public's optimism about Obama's leadership, Jindal, as well as other Republicans, took care to focus criticism primarily on Congress' Democratic leaders, not on the president.

Pre-speech, Wall Street was in a better mood than it had been in for days: Stocks were up after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the recession might end this year.

But Obama spoke as bad economic news continued to pile up, felt all too keenly in U.S. homes and businesses. Some 3.6 million jobs have disappeared in the recession that ranks as the biggest job destroyer in the post-World War II period. Americans have lost trillions of dollars in retirement, college and savings accounts, with the stock market falling nearly half from its peak of 16 months ago.

New polls — some with Obama's public support rising and others with it dropping — show that the political climate can be as precarious as the economic one. So Obama reached for both candor and can-do, blending the kind of grim honesty that has become his trademark since taking office with a greater emphasis on optimism.

"The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation," he said.

The central argument of his speech was that his still-unfolding economic revival plan has room for — even demands — a broader agenda. This is the big chore of his young presidency, and Obama's hope was that he can begin to persuade the country that the longer-term items on his presidential agenda are as important to the nation's economic well-being as unchoking credit and turning around unemployment numbers.

"The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care, the schools that aren't preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit," Obama said.

He urged lawmakers to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change by creating a cap-and-trade system of limits and pollution allowances. And he said the budget he is sending to Congress on Thursday will call for $15 billion a year in federal spending to spur development of environmentally friendly but so far cost-ineffective energy sources such as wind and solar, biofuels, clean coal and more fuel-efficient vehicles.

He said his budget request also will create new incentives for teacher performance and support for innovative education programs. He asked every American to commit to completing a year or more of higher education or career training.

In contrast to many State of the Union addresses by George W. Bush, Obama did not emphasize foreign policy. He touched on his intention to chart new strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan and to forge a new image for the U.S. around the world even as he keeps up the fight against terrorism.

With the economy dominant, Obama said the mess was one he inherited. "We have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity, where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter or the next election," he said.

Nonetheless, he aimed to show he is tackling the situation with both urgency and strict oversight for how the staggering sums are being spent. The massive stimulus plan, an overhaul of the financial sector bailout, and a $275 billion rescue for struggling homeowners are already in place, and more is likely on the way, Obama said.

Even as Washington pours money into the economic recovery, Obama said the budget deficit, at $1.3 trillion and ballooning, must be brought under control.

He promised he would slash it by half by the end of his term in 2013, mostly by ending U.S. combat in Iraq and eliminating some of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. He said his budget officials have identified a total of $2 trillion in savings over the next 10 years, also including ending education programs "that don't work" and payments to large agribusinesses "that don't need them," eliminating wasteful no-bid contracts in Iraq and spending on weapons systems no longer needed in the post-Cold War era, and rooting out waste in Medicare.

"Everyone in this chamber, Democrats and Republicans, will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars," he said. "And that includes me."

He touted his decision to end the practice of leaving Iraq and Afghanistan war spending out of the main budget. "For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price," Obama said.

Analysis: Obama address renews audacity to hope

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama gave America the audacity to hope again.

After describing the U.S. economy in nearly apocalyptic terms for weeks, pushing his $787 billion stimulus plan through Congress, the president used his address to Congress on Tuesday night to tap the deep well of American optimism — the never-say-die spirit that every president tries to capture in words. And great presidents embody.

"We will rebuild. We will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," Obama said, echoing Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.

"The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach," Obama said. "What is required now is for this country is to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more."

The themes of responsibility, accountability and, above all, national community rang throughout an address carefully balanced by the gravity of its times. Job losses. Home foreclosures. Credit crisis. Rising health care costs. Declining trust in government. Obama touched all those bases.

"The impact of this recession is real, and it is everywhere," he said.

It seemed that the president might be sticking to the dour talking points of the stimulus debate, when he warned that failure to pass the legislation would lead to a catastrophe "as deep and dire as any since the Great Depression," one that "we may be unable to reverse."

Fearing (and hearing) the worst, Americans supported Obama's package and lawmakers passed it. But his rhetoric carried a risk.

None other than former President Bill Clinton, husband of Obama's former rival and now the secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, complained that the president's words were too much of a downer. The president from Hope, Ark., told the author of "The Audacity of Hope" to get back on message.

"I just want the American people to know that he's confident that we are going to get out of this and he feels good about the long run," Clinton told ABC's "Good Morning America" last Friday.

Obama didn't need Clinton's advice. While his advisers privately criticized Clinton for second-guessing their strategy, Obama said a president must be both a realist and a cheerleader. "I'm constantly trying to thread the needle between sounding alarmist but also letting the American people know the circumstances that we're in," Obama told ABC News on Feb. 10.

Indeed, advisers said at the time that Obama had already written much of his address, and they predicted that it would mark a rhetorical pivot — from selling fear to raising hopes.

And that he did.

"You should also know," Obama told millions of viewers Tuesday night, "that the money you've deposited in banks across the country is safe; your insurance is secure; you can rely on the continued operation of our financial system."

He sounded like Roosevelt who, after closing banks briefly in the first days of his presidency, stoked the embers of American optimism. "Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan," Roosevelt said. "Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system. It is up to you to support and make it work. It is your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail."

Like Roosevelt, Obama asked Americans to unite against pessimism. "We are a nation that has seen promise amid peril, and claimed opportunity from ordeal," Obama said. "Now we must be that nation again."

Like Roosevelt, Obama said his government had already provided the machinery to create jobs, improve access to health care, free up credit and help struggling homeowners.

And, like Roosevelt, he challenged Americans to help fix the nation's woes. Obama even challenged his fellow citizens to recognize their role in creating the problem. "People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford," Obama said, "from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway."

He was blunt but bullish on America.

"None of this will come without cost, nor will it be easy," he said after spelling out his agenda. "But this is America. We don't do what's easy. We do what is necessary to move this country forward."

In short, he reminded people that America has always seen itself as a "shining city upon a hill," as one of its earliest leaders, John Winthrop, put it — a metaphor that Ronald Reagan reintroduced effectively in the 1980s.

When he addressed Congress, Reagan liked to pepper the audience with average people who did extraordinary things and epitomized the American spirit. Obama borrowed that device, inviting Ty'Sheoma Bethea to join first lady Michelle Obama in the crowd.

Bethea is an eighth-grade student who wrote Congress for help in repairing her dilapidated school, telling lawmakers that she and her fellow students will rise above their conditions because, "We are not quitters."

And that was Obama's bottom-line message to a shaken nation. We are not quitters.

Obama pledges $15B for Medicaid, answers critics

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama promised quick help for strapped Medicaid programs Monday amid a gathering of advisers and adversaries to discuss keeping entitlement programs from exploding the federal deficit.

Obama's summit at the White House, which was coming at close of a three-day meeting of the nation's governors, was the first such forum of his young presidency designed specifically to get at problems threatening the long-term fiscal health of the nation. It came as Obama gets ready to disclose ambitious plans to slash the federal deficit in half within four years.

Even before it began, some of its 130 invited White House conference participants cautioned against overinflated expectations.

"It can either be a nice press event. Or it can be a substantive event," said Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, whom Obama appointed as commerce secretary before the New Hampshire lawmaker balked. "History tells us it will be the first. We've had these meetings before. There's always a lot of people willing to point out the problem."

Yet, he said, there is seldom anyone willing to make the difficult decisions to solve those problems.

As the nation's economy continues its downward spiral, Obama's advisers are keeping their focus on the broader fiscal troubles that have sent millions to unemployment rolls. Taken in context, the summit is but one part of the White House's larger approach to the coming weeks focused on Obama's priorities for a first term, including a State of the Union-style address on Tuesday.

That speech is not likely to include plans to deal with long-crumbling entitlement programs.

Obama's first order of business on the domestic front Monday was his East Room talk to the governors about the stimulus program — and an unmistakable warning to critics of the $787 billion plan.

Obama revealed that his administration will release $15 billion Wednesday to help governors meet Medicaid payments to poor Americans. And he took the opportunity, as well, to address concerns about the stimulus plan raised by a handful of Republican governors who have called the plan overly large and wasteful .

At issue is a proposed expansion of state unemployment benefits for part-time workers and others who where previously ineligible to receive the funding. Some GOP governors — several with an eye on the 2012 presidential contest including Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana — say they may not accept that funding because it will require a tax increase on employers once the stimulus money runs out.

Obama addressed that critique directly, and warned against allowing political considerations to cloud a discussion of the stimulus program.

"I think there are some very legitimate concerns on the part of some about the sustainability of expanding unemployment insurance. What hasn't been noted is that that is $7 billion of a $787 billion program. And it's not even the majority of the expansion of unemployment insurance," Obama said.

He added, "If we agree on 90 percent of this stuff, and we're spending all our time on television arguing about 1, 2, 3 percent of the spending in this thing, and somehow it's being characterized in broad brush as wasteful spending, that starts sounding more like politics. And that's what right now we don't have time to do."

On the larger question of burgeoning deficits, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said that a solution exists in legislation written by Gregg and his Democratic counterpart on the Budget Committee, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota.

Their measure would create a bipartisan commission to deal with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The entitlement programs face eventual bankruptcy, although experts differ on how urgently each is threatened.

Many House Democrats, however, remain opposed to a commission, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Obama has indicated he's open to the idea — and many others — as a way to move toward a viable solution.

McConnell said any movement would be a step toward getting a handle on the unfunded liabilities.

Obama plans to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term, mostly by scaling back Iraq war spending, raising taxes on the wealthiest and streamlining government. The goal is to halve the federal deficit to $533 billion by the time his first term ends in 2013.

He inherited a deficit of about $1.3 trillion from his predecessor, President George W. Bush.