Remarks by the President After Meeting with the President's Working Group on Financial...

Remarks by the President After Meeting with the President's Working Group on Financial Markets

WASHINGTON--(Business Wire)--Roosevelt Room

1:47 P.M. EST

I had quite a fascinating and productive meeting with the
President's Working Group on Financial Markets, chaired by Secretary
Paulson. I want to thank the members for working diligently to monitor
our capital market system, our financial system. And while there is
some uncertainty, the report is, is that the financial markets are
strong and solid. And I want to thank you for being diligent.

This economy of ours is on a solid foundation, but we can't take
economic growth for granted. And there are signs that will cause us to
be ever more diligent and to make sure that good policies come out of
Washington. For example, we've had 52 straight months of job creation,
but job growth slowed last month. The core inflation is low, but U.S.
consumers are paying more for gasoline and for food. Consumer spending
is strong, yet the values on many of the homes in America are
beginning to decline, which leads me to say to the American people:
For those of you who are paying more and are worried about your home,
we understand that. That's why we have an aggressive policy to help
credit-worthy people stay in their homes.

The Congress and the President have got to work together when they
come back to, one, make sure taxes remain low. If there are -- if the
foundation is strong, yet indicators are mixed, the worst thing the
Congress could do is raise taxes on the American people and on
American businesses. Secondly, we have got to understand that if we
are worried about gasoline prices, we ought to expand refineries here
in the United States, and we ought to explore for oil and gas in
environmentally friendly ways in the United States. As I mentioned,
the Secretary and Secretary Jackson are leading an initiative on
housing, called HOPE NOW, but there's legislation that can be passed
to make it easier for people to refinance their homes.

And so when Congress comes back, I look forward to working with
them to deal with the economic realities of the moment, and to assure
the American people that we will do everything we can to make sure we
remain a prosperous country.

Thank you very much.

END 1:50 P.M. EST

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