By Calvin Palmer
President George W. Bush has spoken today to justify the economic decisions of recent days that have so angered the free-market conservatives.
And he likely angered them further with his pledge of further help to the stricken financial markets.
President Bush said his administration had taken “extraordinary measures” in recent days that were “necessary and important” for the sake of the global economy.
Speaking after the U.S. Federal Reserve injected $180 billion into the global money markets and $55 billion into other U.S. markets, he said: “The American people are concerned about the situation in our financial markets and our economy and I share their concerns.”
He added: “Our financial markets continue to deal with serious challenges. As our recent actions demonstrate, my administration is focused on meeting these challenges.”
His statement saw the leading Dow Jones Index on Wall Street climb 147 points but it later fell back to be up by 8.7 when the London FTSE 100 Index closed for the day down 32.4 at 4880.
Senior Republicans have been angered by the Bush administration’s intervention to bail out struggling financial companies.
“You cannot nationalize every failing business in America,” said Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, chairman of the House Republican Study Committee. “If government now becomes the safety net for private enterprise too big to fail, we are going to end up with an economy more like France than the United States.”
[Based on reports in The Daily Telegraph and The Washington Times.]
