Obama Cites Grim Economy at Start, as Predecessors Have - washingtonpost.com

"For every day we wait or point fingers or drag our feet, more Americans will lose their jobs. More families will lose their savings. More dreams will be deferred and denied," he told an audience at George Mason University in Fairfax County. "And our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse."

For Obama, the address was the laying down of a political marker, said Andrew G. Biggs, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

"He wants to make clear that coming into his administration that the problems he faces are problems that he inherited," Biggs said. "He does not want to be judged by where the economy ends up in a couple of years, but by from where he started."In tone and manner, Obama's speech was eerily reminiscent of the early declarations from the past four presidents, who took office warning of economic perils that lay just around the corner.

Obama Cites Grim Economy at Start, as Predecessors Have - washingtonpost.com