Getting stronger?

This week, we look at press commentary on US President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, and at Britain’s historic debt.

The state of Barack Obama

The Financial Times writes that the US economy is getting stronger, but that President Barack Obama has failed to persuade the American public that his policies will transform the country.

… Any evaluation of Mr Obama’s records should start with the extraordinary turbulence he inherited in early 2009. … Mr Obama’s response to the crisis was effective. Both the $787bn stimulus and the second half of the $700bn Wall Street bailout could have been better handled. But they retrieved the US from the brink at a stage when many were urging it over the cliff. …

A trillion reasons to reduce the debt

Britain’s national debt has reached historic — and frightening — levels, according to The Telegraph. The good news, the newspaper writes, is that the British public is ready to support strong measures to deal with it.

One of the problems with economics is that it can be hard to grasp the scale of the numbers that are thrown around. But it should be clear to everyone that a trillion pounds — the benchmark reached by the national debt in December — is an awful lot of money. …[O]ver recent years, the British government (as well as households and financial institutions) went on a borrowing spree unparalleled in our history; when it all came crashing down, we were left with the costs not just of our prior extravagance, but of the bail-outs that prevented out-and-out catastrophe. …