Speech To Joint Session of Congress, February 2009
United States President Barack Obama delivered a speech to a joint session of the 111th United States Congress on February 24, 2009. It was not an official State of the Union address. Obama's first State of the Union Address was the 2010 State of the Union Address. The speech was delivered on the floor of the chamber of the United States House of Representatives in the United States Capitol. Presiding over this joint session was the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Accompanying the Speaker of the House was the President of the United States Senate, Joe Biden, the Vice President of the United States.
President Obama discussed the recently passed $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 as well as the Troubled Assets Relief Program, the state of the economy, and the future of the country.
Attorney General Eric Holder was the designated survivor and did not attend the address in order to maintain a continuity of government. He was sequestered at a secret secure location for the duration of the event.
Read more about this topic: Speeches By Barack Obama
Famous quotes containing the words speech, joint, session and/or february:
“Speech and prose are not the same thing. They have different wave-lengths, for speech moves at the speed of light, where prose moves at the speed of the alphabet, and must be consecutive and grammatical and word-perfect. Prose cannot gesticulate. Speech can sometimes do nothing more.”
—James Kenneth Stephens (18821950)
“Such joint ownership creates a place where mothers can father and fathers can mother. It does not encourage mothers and fathers to compete with one another for first- place parent. Such competition is not especially good for marriage and furthermore drives kids nuts.”
—Kyle D. Pruett (20th century)
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (18571930)
“In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending your left leg, its modern architecture.”
—Nancy Banks-Smith, British columnist. Guardian (London, February 20, 1979)