[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 44, Number 42 (Monday, October 27, 2008)]
[Pages 1367-1369]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Following a Meeting With Business Leaders in Alexandria, 
Louisiana

October 20, 2008

    I am honored to be with you all. Thank you very much for hosting 
this meeting here--and the good folks from Alexandria and Pineville, 
Louisiana.
    I have come to talk about the economic situation in the country. A 
lot of the people down here and other parts of the country are wondering 
why a free market-oriented President made the decisions to--necessary, 
well, to get the Government buying stocks

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in banks, for example. Why would you do that?
    The answer is, because I was deeply concerned about a financial 
crisis becoming so profound and so acute that it hurt the people and 
small-business owners here in Alexandria and Pineville--that's why. If I 
felt that the crisis could be contained in Wall Street, then I'd have 
taken a different course of action. But the crisis that was gripping 
this country, and still has a grip on this country, affects the people 
around this table. And that's why I made the decision I made.
    Part of that decision is to make sure that the people who end up 
with hard-working taxpayers' money don't enrich themselves as a result 
of that kind of money. As I was talking to Rodney Alexander--he's a fine 
Congressman from this part of the world--he said, ``One thing people 
want to make sure of, Mr. President, is that when you invest that 
they're not able to take that Government investment and use it to their 
own advantage, personally''--in other words, golden parachutes or 
something like that.
    Secondly, I believe--and I can say this with confidence to the 
people out here--that I think we're going to get--be able to get most of 
your money back. And the reason I say that is because the Government is 
really making investments, and, obviously, making investments in a 
difficult period for our economy. And we're big enough and patient 
enough to be able to hold these investments. Plus the investments are 
structured to encourage, for example, big banks, when they get back on 
their feet and get doing better to be--to buy back the shares or get 
somebody else to buy back the shares.
    One of the things that I have heard around the table--and I'm not 
surprised--is that the regional banks and the community banks, which 
provide such an important part of many communities--or are such an 
important part of many communities, and provide
such stability for the country's financial system, they're worried about 
being labeled with the same brush as some of the big banks that have had 
economic difficulties. And I think the people in Alexandria need to know 
that community banks are strong, and they got good capital ratios, and 
they're healthy. And that's good. It's going to be very important for 
the small-business sector.
    I am deeply concerned about the small-business sector. Seventy 
percent of new jobs in America are created by small-business owners. And 
we've got small-business owners with us today, and one of the problems 
facing small-business owners is that they were very worried that their 
non-interest-bearing accounts in banks were not insured. And so the FDIC 
took action to insure those accounts so that small-business owners can 
be comfortable that their money they got in place for inventories are in 
good shape.
    And then the question I've asked here is, what are the attitudes 
like? And I have heard that people's attitudes are beginning to change 
from a period of intense concerns--and I would call it near panic--to 
being more relaxed and beginning to see the effects of changes in the 
liquidity that is being pumped in the system. Now, we got a long way to 
go. As I said Friday, this thaw--took a while to thaw; it's going to 
take a while to unthaw. But it's--but the attitude here is a little 
different than it might have been a week ago.
    And so I want to thank you all very much for giving me a chance to 
come visit with you. I'm very fond of this part of the country. It's not 
that far away from my home State. And so, appreciate your time. 
Appreciate the good folks in this part of the world. I do want to thank 
all those who have said prayers for me and Laura during our Presidency. 
It's meant an awful lot. Thank you all.

Note: The President spoke at 1:32 p.m. at the Central Louisiana Chamber 
of Commerce.

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