Q Dana, the remarks this afternoon will be the third time in two days that the President has spoken about the economy. Does he feel that the American people need reassurance about the plan that was signed into law on Friday, and after yesterday's plunge on Wall Street?

MS. PERINO: Well, certainly the President of the United States recognizes that people all over America are watching very closely what's happening in the economy and they're concerned about their statements. They're probably not looking forward to next month's statement when they get their retirement fund or their college fund bank statement. And so the President understands that.

One of the things that the President can do is to remind them what this rescue package would do. One of the most important things that it would do is to make sure that everybody knows that their bank deposit is safe, insured by the FDIC, and the legislation allowed for a temporary increase from $100,000 to $250,000. This reassures people that their bank accounts are safe, and that's an important message.

But remember, with this rescue package, we asked the American people to do a really big thing and commit a lot of money in order to help prevent the credit freeze from affecting everybody lower on down the food chain. And to that extent, yes, the President thinks that it's important that they hear from the President of the United States about how he understands that nobody wanted to do this legislation, however, it was the right thing to do. And now that we've done it, the most important thing is that Treasury move in the most expeditious way possible, to be efficient and to be effective, to make sure that the plan will do what it's supposed to do and un-freeze these credit markets.

Ann.

seen at 09:00, 7 October in Whitehouse Press Briefings. Email this to a friend.
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