Faced with rising unemployment numbers and criticism from Republicans who have already labeled the $787 billion stimulus a failure, Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to remind voters that reversing job losses takes time.
He criticized Republicans for opposing the stimulus but offering few alternatives to the worst recession since the Great Depression. And he rejected talk of a second stimulus, an idea that has been discussed by Democrats and even famed investor Warren Buffett.
"We must let it work the way it's supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity," Obama, who is visiting Ghana on Saturday, said in his recorded message.
The stimulus included $288 billion in tax cuts, dramatic increases in Medicaid spending, about $48 billion in highway and bridge construction and billions more to boost energy efficiency, shore up state budgets and improve schools.
The plan "was not designed to work in four months," Obama said. "It was designed to work over two years."
Since Obama signed the stimulus into law, the economy has lost more than 2 million jobs and the unemployment rate has climbed higher than the White House predicted it would have ever reached without the stimulus.
Some companies say stimulus money helped avoid layoffs. Independent government auditors found that stimulus aid to states helped keep teachers off unemployment lines. But overall job numbers continue to suffer.
Republicans have seized on this opportunity to criticize the president, but they have struggled to find their collective voice. At a news conference Friday, Republican lawmakers criticized the White House for spending so much, while simultaneously saying the administration wasn't spending it fast enough.
With the Obama administration now pushing for a costly overhaul of the nation's health care system, Republicans are casting Democrats as liberals on a shopping spree. In the GOP's weekly address Saturday, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Republican whip, accused the Democratic-controlled Congress of reckless spending and careless borrowing.
